Of Rain and Hot Messes
by SleepingWithTheRoses
Summary: Adelaide Meredith Grey-Shepherd was often told she was a magnet for trouble, but after moving across the country with her husband and child to start her internship at Seattle Grace Hospital she thought she would leave that behind her. Apparently, Seattle Grace Hospital made it worse. Now, after leaving everything she knew behind, she begins to wonder if she's going to survive.
1. In the Beginning, We were Happy

**A/N the first about three chapters will be telling more history, and will be setting relationships up for the beginning of Meredith's internship.**

Adelaide Meredith Grey-Shepherd wasn't used to mistakes.

She was not used to feeling like she was a mistake and unable to do anything right. As a child, she made straight A's, she was involved in every club and on every committee her school had to offer, even being the student government president and the student body president at one point. She had won multiple awards, she was at one point one of the best pitchers in Boston, and even aspired to study medicicne. She was literally the perfect child, but she could never seem to please the one person she wanted to the most, her mother.

She always told her to stop, told her she could never do it, always said she didn't have what it took. So, at age 11, Meredith had aspired to prove her mother wrong, aspired to prove that she didn't make mistakes. If her mother said she couldn't do it, then she was going to do it and she was going to be the best at it.

She had striven to prove her mother wrong, striven to prove that she was good and that she could do everything her mother thought she couldn't, until she had nothing left to strive for. She had done everything, but it was never enough, none of it had been enough. So she left. She had gotten all her credits so, at 17, she chose to attend Columbia College and leave her mother and everything she stood for behind.

Leaving that year had been one of the most freeing moments of Meredith's life. She had been able to go out, make friends, not have to sneak Addison into her house or go out when her mom wasn't looking, which was the second best decision of her life. She followed up by choosing to go into medicine, more specifically surgery, the third best decision of her life.

Then, at 18, Meredith's best friend, Addison Forbes Montgomery, used her friend's new found freedom and tried to get Meredith a boyfriend claiming that her sleeping around was not healthy, that she needed stability. Ironically, she met her first boyfriend in a long time the one time it wasn't supposed to be a date.

 _"Addison, remind me why I am doing this for you?" Meredith asked._

 _"Because you are my sister and you love me," Addison said smiling as the door was opened for them._

 _Meredith rolled her eyes as she entered the very, very nice restaurant. Addison's boyfriend of seven months had asked Addison out to a very nice restaurant, however it conflicted with girls night, so her boyfriend had told Addison to bring her and he'd bring his brother claiming it was about time they met each other's family. Now, Meredith was unsure of her decision the closer the host got to the table. As she walked her dress seemed to get tighter and her heels harder to walk in._

 _Addison smiled at a table and Meredith tried to follow her line_ _of sight but the table they were going to be at that night was obstructed by Addison's big head._ _The first thing she did see was a fairly attractive man with dirty blonde hair, bright eyes, and a charming smile_.

 _"Addie," he said hugging her once they had gotten to the table and then he turned his attention to her. "And you must be the lovely Adelaide Grey."_

 _Meredith gave him a bright smile and shook his hand. "Never, ever call me Adelaide unless you want to end up dead on the side of the road in a remote town in Mexico. It's Meredith."_

 _Mark's eyes widened a little, as he took a step back. Meredith guessed he had enough sense to not make his girlfriend's sister mad._

 _"Nice, Mark, you just met her and you've already made her mad." Meredith turned and looked at the man she assumed was Mark's brother. He was also attractive, with dark curly hair that was tamed by hair care products, bright blue eyes, and what Meredith personally thought was a very charming smile._

 _"I didn't make her mad," Mark said then turned back to face her. "I didn't make you mad, right?"_

 _Meredith smirked. "No, but if you ever call me Adelaide again and I will hurt you."_

 _"Oh, right, Derek that's Addison," Mark said pointing at Addison causing Addison and Derek roll their eyes and Meredith to smirk from behind Mark._

 _"We know each other Mark, we all have the same classes," Addison said. She, Derek, and Mark had had the same classes in med school all throughout their two years, and they had even planned on doing their residencies at the same hospital._

 _"Oh, yeah, Derek, this is Meredith, Addison's sister," Mark said pointing back at her._

 _"Yeah, I guessed." Derek moved closer and held out his hand. "Derek Shepherd."_

 _"Meredith Grey," Meredith said shaking his hand with a smile and then all four of them moved to take a seat around the table. They had been chatting idly when the waiter came and got their food orders._

 _"So, what do you do?" Derek asked her after the waiter took their menus._

 _"Oh, uh, college." Meredith winced, that was not very articulate._

 _"College? Are you getting your_ _Bachelor's or Master's?"_

 _"Bachelor's_. _I'm_ _getting my B.A. from Columbia," Meredith said, taking a sip of water._

 _"Columbia?" Derek asked. "Impressive."_

 _"Yeah, got in on an academic scholarship that payed for half of my tuition. How can you say no to that?"_

 _"Now that's impressive," Derek said and leaned back in his seat. "When's graduation, I'm assuming it's soon right?"_

 _"Oh, I have no idea," Meredith said and took another sip._

 _Derek raised his eyebrows. "Are you not graduating?" Derek asked._

 _"Oh, no, I'm not graduating for two more years. Right now, I'm worried about finals," Meredith said and then looked up at him. "What? What's wrong?"_

 _Derek shook his head, "Nothing."_

 _"Okay, in that case, I hear the three of you are thinking about going to the same hospital for residency. Are you going to Mount Sinai also?"_

 _"Oh yeah, I am. One of the best hospitals in the states, I'm not turning that one down," Derek said, taking a sip of his wine. "So, why don't you like Adelaide, I'm_ _actually quite partial to it myself?"_

 _"Addison likes to say it's part of my crusade against my mother, I'm inclined to agree with her," Meredith said._

 _"So, I guess you're not a fan of Ellis Grey," Derek said, smirking at her._

 _"Not even a little," Meredith said smirking back. "She's_ _actually why I went to college early, I couldn't stand her anymore."_

 _"Ah, what about your dad?" Derek asked._

 _"He walked out on us when I was five," Meredith said before sighing. "I never bothered to find anything out about him since. What about yours?"_

 _Derek winced, "Died, he was shot during a robbery."_

 _"Oh God, I'm so sorry. If I had known..."_

 _"No, no, it's fine, and I'm sorry I brought up your parents," Derek said._

 _"Derek, I'm a soulless bitch with the world's worst parents, I don't mind, but you obviously cared about your dad," Meredith said giving him a small smile at him._

 _"Yeah, I did...maybe we should get off this topic," Derek said smiling._

 _Meredith chuckled and nodded her head, but before they had time to talk anymore their food was brought out and they were sucked into Addison and Mark's debate. The rest of the night they just talked and every once in awhile they would get into a friendly debate._

 _Once the night was over, however, Meredith got_ _stuck driving as she was the only one that hadn't had a drink that night, and Derek got kicked to the front with her as Addison and Mark were tipsy probably horny and wanted to sit in the back together, and about five minutes away from Derek and Mark's apartment, Meredith wished she had nipped that in the bud._

 _Once they got the apartment, Meredith and Derek were very quick to get out of the car and the two of them laughed as they quickly walked away from the car, and Meredith falling flat on her face and breaking her heel only made the two laugh harder. They finally made it up to the apartment with Meredith leaning heavily on Derek and at this point her sides hurting and she was pretty sure there were tear tracks on her face._

 _"I had a fun night," She heard him gasp out._

 _"Oh, me too." Meredith didn't know how it started or who started it but Meredith somehow found herself kissing Derek while pressed up against the wall, his hands roaming her body and her hands immediately went up to his gorgeous hair. One thing lead to another, and she assumes that's how she ended up naked on a couch and him on the floor naked_. _With Addison standing over her with an oversized button up shirt on._

 _'You too huh.'_

But the result of that had also been a mistake to her mother as at age 19, after a year of dating, Meredith married Derek Shepherd in a church in front of all their family and 200 other people. As a matter of fact, Meredith acutely remembered her mother telling her she was throwing away her life and that this, like everything else, was a mistake, but it had turned out to be the best day of her life seeing as she got to marry the man she loved.

The point was, Meredith never made mistakes, until today.

She was currently pacing across the threshold of the appartment. They were moving, and not from like New York to Boston, no, they had to move cross-country to Seattle. Seattle, Washington for God's sake, and Meredith had no idea why Derek would pick Seattle Grace Hospital over Mount Sinai or Harvard or anywhere else seeing as they all gave him a similar offer, but Seattle Grace was on the other side of the stinking country! Not only that, but she had med school exams today. Today! And she couldn't remember anything! Her head was too full between making sure her clothes make it across the country, knowing what the gallbladder is, and her third problem that wasn't even a blip on her radar right now.

She distantly heard the door open and close, and she heard footsteps and bags shuffling but she couldn't make out who it was and she didn't feel like looking over to see whether it was a member of the Shepherd clan, a member of the Sloan clan, or someone here to murder her. All three options sounded equally as appealing.

She got her answer when Addison Forbes Montgomery-Sloan came into her feld off vision with raised eyebrows and grocery bags.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"I'm pacing," Meredith said distantly, continuing to wear a hole in the floor.

"I can see that, but why are you pacing?" Addison asked setting her bags on the island.

"One, I'm about to take my exams, and two, I'm about to move across the country. I think I have a right to pace," Meredith turned around. "Why do you have groceries?"

"Because Derek called and said you have no food because you stress ate through all of it," Addison said giving her a pointed look as she set her hand on her hip.

Meredith sighed, "I'm sorry, it's just...I'm freaking out."

"Mer," Addison said as she walked over to Meredith and grabbed her arms, shaking her slightly as she spoke. "You are going to do fine. I've helped you study, Mark has helped you study, Derek has helped you study... You're going to do great, brilliant even. You are my sister and no one related to me is allowed to flunk out of med school."

"Unfortunately," Meredith said as she sighed, running a hand through her auburn mane.

"Hey, turn that frown upside down," Addison said, moving back to the kitchen. "Cause you and I get to pick out wine!" She finished holding up her tablet.

"Yay," Meredith said very unenthusiatically, being reminded if her third problem at the mention of wine.

Addison's smile dropped, "Oh, come on, I even made it all rhyme." Meredith smiled as she stood up and walked over to Addison.

"I know, and I appreciate the sentiment," Meredith said.

"Hey, at least your mother isn't here, you'd be showered with I told you so's," Addison mocked, grinning.

"Well, at least she isn't here to call you the redhead who hit her daughter with a car," Meredith said smiling at Addison who started laughing.

"Oh god, she's never going to let that go, is she."

"Nope," Meredith said popping her 'p' before breaking out into a laugh at the fairly traumatizing memory. Well, traumatizing for Addison.

 _Meredith was 11 at the time and had been running around the backyard hitting the ball off the tee. She had been playing softball since she was five, and her coach often complemented her, called her his best pitcher, called her great, and she wasn't about to dissapoint seeing as that was the only thing she could do in her mother's eyes._

 _No one was usually around to throw the ball for her, and there was never anyone to pitch for, so she often hit off the tee and pitched at the house. Her mom would never notice the dents, she wasn't around enough._

 _Meredith hit the ball one last time before moving to start working on her pitching she threw about five perfect ones before she missed. It wasn't new to miss, but it was dissapointing that it rolled into the road._

 _Meredith ran to the end of the driveway, her long auburn ponytail swinging behind her as she ran. She looked both ways before jogging out into the road to grab her ball._ _She had managed to grab the ball, but she was brought to a halt when she heard screeching tires and looked up to see a red car coming at her, and all she could do was screem as she was hit._

 _She watched her ball roll away as the pain start spreading around her entire body._

 _"Oh god, oh my god!" She heard as a car door slammed and she saw a redhead enter her vision._

 _"You are going to be alright, I've called 911, they're on their way. Oh god."_

 _The redhead was pretty, her fiery hair was pulled into a ponytail and she had a really pretty dress on. She liked her eyes they were warm and kind, something she wasn't used to seeing. She knew she should dislike the woman who hit her with her car, but she didn't really, as a matter of fact, she kind of liked her._

 _"I was in such a hurry, I wasn't paying attention. I can't believe I hit you, I'm so sorry." The redhead looked close to tears. Meredith hated seeing people cry._

 _"I'm fine," Meredith choaked out. "I don't blame you. I shouldn't have been bent down in the middle of the road."_

 _Meredith smiled up at the redhead. She smiled a bit after Meredith spoke._

 _"What's your name?" The redhead asked._

 _"Meredith, but you can call me Mer," Meredith coughed again. "Yours?"_

 _"Addison, but you can call me Addie." Addison smiled down at her and Meredith smiled back._

 _"So..." Meredith said. "How about them Jets?"_

 _Addison laughed and pulled Meredith into her lap. "That asphalt_ _can't be comfortable."_

 _Meredith tried to shake her head, but it really hurt so she just settled for saying no._

 _"You're going to be okay," Addison said as she scanned the area nervously, assumingly for an ambulance._

 _"I know, because you're here."_

 _"Please, you wouldn't be lying here if it weren't for me."_

 _"Yeah, I could be back in my yard, but I never would have meet you, or I could still be lying here but instead of someone really nice stopping and calling 911, they could have kept driving and I could have died, so they way I look at it, I've got the best of both worlds."_

 _Addison chuckled. "You are way to optimistic."_

 _"I'm not usually," Meredith said. "It's just something that happens when you face down death. Mom calls it shock."_

 _"Yeah, you probably are in shock."_

 _Meredith heard sirens and then saw the flashing lights. Addison started talking to one of the paramedics as the other moved her onto a gurney. She saw the sky change to the inside of the ambulance, but Addison had stayed in her line of sight the whole time and Meredith was grateful for that._

 _"Thankfully, I think it was mostly minor cuts and bruises, maybe a broken rib."_

 _"Yeah, I'm just relieved I saw her and was able to slow down." Meredith felt Addison grab her hand and immediately she felt better._

 _"We are en route for Brigham," The paramedic said after speaking to the one driving._

 _That immediately sent Meredith into distress. "No, not Brigham," Meredith said then groaned in pain._

 _"I'm sorry, but it's the closest-"_

 _"No, I don't want to go!" Anything to avoid her mother._

 _"Ma'am, please, it's your best option-"_

 _"No! I do not want to go to Brigham!"_

 _"Please, Mer," Addison said. "Please let them take you, for me." Meredith saw Addison's pleading eyes_ _and she knew Brigham was her best option, even if she didn't want it to be._

 _After a few minutes they arrived at the hospital and she was pulled off_ _the ambulance into the presence of multiple doctors, one of which she recognized, unfortunately._

 _"Adelaide!"_

 _Meredith groaned and Addison, although she appreciated the sentiment, unfortunatley came to her aid._

 _"Ma'am, I'm sorry but he name is Meredith."_

 _"No, for God's sake. Her name is Adelaide Grey and she's_ _my daughter! Let's move, people. What happened?"_

 _"She was hit by a car, Doctor," One of the paramedics said as they ran alongside Ellis._

 _"Who hit my daughter?" Ellis Grey asked outraged. "Was it a hit and run?"_

 _"Uh, that was me, Ma'am," Addison said tentatively._

 _"You hit my daughter with a car and you have the audacity to stand here!" Ellis shouted outraged._

 _Addison gulped and took that as her moment to go turning, but Meredith grabbed her hand, stopping her._

 _"Addison is allowed here because she's my friend and she was there for me, and don't push me because I'm_ _not quite sure if you are welcome yet." Meredith returned her mother's glare and eventually Meredith won the glaring match, much to Addison_ 's _relief._

 _After they took Meredith in for scans they found that she had a few bruises, scrapes, a broken rib, and needed her appendix out. And after all that Addison was able to stay in Meredith's_ _room until she woke up._

 _"Hey Addie, I'm glad to see my mother didn't run you off," Meredith said smiling after she opened her eyes._

 _Addison returned the smile and grabbed her hand. "It's going to take more than that for me to leave you. Now I'm attached."_

"What a day," Addison said smiling as she reminisced.

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder how you survived." Meredith laughed as Addison pushed her.

"Sometimes I wonder how you survived, you're litteraly a magnet for bad stuff," Addison retorted.

"Are we talking about Meredith being a bad juju magnet?" Meredith turned around and saw Mark Sloan standing in her doorway.

"Mark Sloan," she mockingly looked him over. "Time really has done a number on you, old man."

Meredith laughed when Mark scooped her up and spun her around. "One, I'm not that old, two, you're my sister, talking about age and looks is off limits, Little Miss Grey, and three, why are we talking about you being a bad juju magnet."

"Why are we talking about Meredith being a bad juju magnet?" Derek asked as he walked in with more bags.

"I'm not a bad juju magnet," Meredith said pouting.

"Oh, you so are," all three of them said at the same time, freaking Meredith out.

"Okay, okay, I'm bad juju," Meredith said holding her hands up.

"Uh huh, now hand me my goodies," Addison said grabbing at the air like a child prompting Derek to hand Addison the grocery bags.

"I can only imagine what you are concocting in there Addie," Meredith said smiling at Addison's back.

"And you will only be imagining as you have exams in two hours and I didn't think you were planning on taking them in your pjs."

"Addison is right, so go get dressed. I'll take you because you are already bad driver to begin with, and now you're nervous," Derek said kissing his wife and then turning back to Mark and Addison who were in the kitchen. "Addison, don't make a mess in my kitchen, and Mark, don't coerce her to do anything in my kitchen."

Mark feigned hurt, "Have you no respect left for me, brother?"

"I have plenty of respect when you are standing behind a scalpel, not so much when you are left unattended in my kitchen with your wife."

Meredith laughed at the conversation happening in her kitchen and walked into their bedroom which was filled with boxes except the outfit she had laid out the night before which consisted of a white blouse, her pink suit jacket, high waisted jeans and her nude pink heels that Addison had gotten her for her birthday, her lucky heels. Then her her third problem inconvenienced her, she couldn't fit into her jeans.

She had been really good about wearing leggings and poofy tops and dresses that don't show off much until she had figured out how to tell them, but now she was panicking, really bad.

"Addie! Addie, can you come back here!" Meredith ripped opened the nearest box, but she had no idea which boxes had her shirts and which had the duvets in them.

That's also about when the waterworks started. She had noticed herself getting teary when she was angry or happy, but now it was bad. Also, she wasn't much of a crier. Actually, the last time she cried was first grade, so Addie would really know something was wrong now.

"Mer, what's wrong?" Meredith turned around to face the door where Addison was standing.

Meredith sniffled, "Shut the door behind you, I know our husbands are standing down at the end of the hallway eavesdropping." Meredith sat down on the bed and dropped her head into her hands, and Addison joined her after she told the guys to scram and slam the door shut.

"Mer, I told you, you are going to do fine on your exams. You know all the material, you're going to kick ass," Addison said. Meredith knew Addison was smiling as she rubbed circles on her back. She knew she should have called Addison when she went to the appointment, Addison was really good at being calm and calming others down, and she's her sister.

"It's not that, Addie, my pants don't fit." Meredith knew that sounded vague, but she didn't know what else to say.

"So you don't fit into children's size 11 jeans, that's not worth sitting on your bed and crying about, and you know it. You can just wear a different pair."

"Addison, I mean my pants won't fit in the waist, that's it, only the waist." Meredith didn't want to just come out and say it. If she did that, it would make it all real.

She felt Addison's hand stop moving, and she could tell Addison was trying to form a coherent sentence. Good, she got the hint.

"Are you sure?" Addison whispered. If the boys were eavesdropping this was not what they needed to hear.

"Yeah, I've been to a gynecologist, I just wanted to be one hundred percent sure-"

"You didn't come to me?" Addison cut her off.

There it was. Meredith knew this would be Addison's reaction, but she didn't want to go and rub it in her face, she knew Addison and Mark wanted kids and were having a hard time of it. A very hard time.

"I just didn't want to rub it in your face," Meredith said.

Addison sighed, rubbing her temple. "How far along are you? 4 weeks? 5?"

Oh boy. "2 months."

"Hold up," Addison said, sounding very irritated. "You've known for a month that you're pregnant and you haven't told anyone, not even your husband?"

"I've know for three days." Meredith finally looked up at Addison and she looked genuinely shocked.

"Why did you wait so long? You're studying to become a doctor, I know you know the symptoms of pregnancy."

"Addison, I'm going to be a surgical intern in 6 months, I don't have time for a baby. I didn't want to be pregnant, so I put it off and hoped it passed to prove that I was worrying over nothing. When it never passed I knew I needed to check."

"Well...at least I know you aren't getting fatter because you stress eat," Addison said smiling at her.

Meredith rolled her eyes. "Just help me into these pants."

"When are you going to tell Derek?" Addison asked as she pulled a hair tie out of her wallet.

"Well, now that you know, probably tonight before dinner...why do you have a hair tie?" Meredith asked.

Addison smiled. "Loop it through the buttonhole and wrap it around the button and pull the zipper up as far as possible. It'll give you more space where you need it."

Meredith smiled back. "Thanks, Addie."

Addison pulled Meredith into a tight hug. "Congrats." Addison let her go and walked out of the room, probably to make sure Mark wasn't about to burn the house down while Derek wasn't looking and ruin her hard work.

Meredith did what Addison said, left her blouse loose, and left the suit jacket on her bed. She grabbed her douple breasted trench and walked out ready to bitch slap those exams.

Meredith walked out of Columbia Med School with a giant smile on her face while most of her peers that walked out with her were groaning and complaining. She felt like she had done really, really well, like she only remembered struggling on one question. One.

She was so giddy that she might as well have been bouncing by the time she got to Derek, and he was beaming once he saw her.

"So, I'm assuming you did well?" Derek asked as he soundly kissed his wife.

"Oh, I kicked it in the ass," Meredith said grinning once they had sperated.

"Perfect, now we have something to celebrate at dinner," Derek said as he moved to open the car door for her.

"Yeah, seeing as we are about to move cross-country," Meredith said, clicking her seatbelt in.

"Meredith, Seattle Grace is one of the best teaching hospitals in the country," Derek said, turning the car on and starting to drive.

"Yeah, as opposed to Harvard, Cleveland, Mount Sinai, and Columbia, which are the best research hospitals in the country, plus, you hate teaching," Meredith countered.

"I just think it's time we try something new. We've been between Massachusetts and New York for the past eight years, I just think it's time we get away."

"You just want away from your sisters and your mom," Meredith said, looking pointedly at him.

"Fine, I do want away from my extremely overbearing mom and overbearing, drug addict sisters, but that doesn't mean I like leaving Mark and Addison behind." Derek sighed, he knew this was going to be a rough adjustment, but he knew they needed out of New York.

"Fine, but if we hate it over there, we have to move back."

"Deal," Derek said.

Meredith smiled and looked foward. She had so much she needed to tell him, but she had no idea how. She obviously wasn't going to do it while he was driving, and she wasn't a fan of all the cheesy, gimicky ways she could tell him, but that wasn't her thing so that left just straight up telling him, but she was so nervous she didn't know if she could choke it out.

"If we ever had a kid, what would you name it?" Okay, that was not what she wanted to say. Well, at least it was better than slipping the other statement.

She could tell that caught him off guard. "What?"

"If we had a kid, what would you name it?" Might as well stick with it.

"Uh, well...I really don't know."

"I don't know either, although I always loved the name Cynthia," Meredith said distantly. "In second grade she was the only girl that talked to me, but halfway through the year she moved."

"Why do you ask?" Derek asked glancing at her.

"Oh, nothing, I just remember a conversation I had with a few classmates about what we'd name our kids. I didn't know, but I wanted to ask you."

"Oh, okay." Meredith knew Derek thought something was up, but he seemed to ignore it and shake it off as he turned off the ignition and Meredith realized that they were at the apartment and she still had no idea how to tell him.

"Ready to go?" Derek asked as he pulled the keys out and glanced over at her. "You're staring, you know."

"I know, you're very hard not to stare at." Meredith smiled as he pecked her on the lips.

"Well, what are we waiting for, you can stare inside?" Derek moved to get out of the car, but Meredith reached out and grabbed his arm before he could go.

"I'm gonna tell you something and you've gotta promise not to freak," she said looking up at him.

Derek looked slightly confused and slightly concerned as he sat back down in his seat. "Okay, what is it?"

Meredith took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself for what she was about to say. This was it.

"Derek, I'm pregnant."

 **A/N**

 **Hello, this is the first chapter of the rewritten version of Poetic Justice is Bullcrap. Now, you will recognize pieces, maybe a lot of pieces, but I will be adding to and revising. I just wasn't a fan of the flow I had in the first one, so here it is.**


	2. In the Beginning, We were Happy 2

Meredith was starting to realize how telling her husband that she was pregnant with his child was not an affair for the car in front of the apartment, and that maybe coming right out and saying it probably wasn't the best either. She did tell Addison this was when she was going to tell him, though, so she didn't want to walk in on Addison and Mark, because they all knew Addison had a big mouth, who knew she was pregnant and her husband didn't know. That was not a good situation to be in.

Meredith was staring at Derek who sort of looked like someone slapped him or splashed water in his face, which is not the look you want on your husband's face after you tell him you're pregnant.

"Derek, please say something, please."

Derek's mouth opened like he was trying to say something but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. Now Meredith actually wanted to slap him.

"You-You're pregnant."

"Yeah," Meredith said hopefully, still looking at her gobsmacked husband.

"With a baby?"

"No, Derek, with a cow," Meredith deadpanned. "Yes I'm pregnant with a baby! You're a surgeon for God's sake!"

"Sorry, it's just," And the biggest smile broke out onto his face. "You're pregnant."

Meredith almost cried when he pulled her in and kissed her. This was way better then the blank look he was wearing a few moments ago.

"I can't believe you asked if I was having a human child," Meredith said laughing once Derek finally released her.

"It will certainly not be one of my finest moments in the future," Derek said and kissed her again.

Meredith smiled. Maybe this baby didn't have the best timing, but she did have the best husband and the best family. She could make this work, right?

"What do we do?" Meredith asked quietly.

Derek pulled back for a minute and studied her for a second. "Do you not want it?"

Oh god. "No, no, I do, but I'm going to be a surgical intern in 6 months, I literally won't have time, and by then she'll still be too little for any daycare that is if I've even have her by then, we have no family up there, and we can't exactly take a baby into work, especially at a hospital." Meredith sighed and sat back in her seat.

Derek smiled at her and Meredith looked at him weirdly. "What?"

"You keep saying her," He said still smiling causing Meredith to blush.

"So, I have a feeling," Meredith said smiling a little.

Derek moved so that he could see her better and grabbed her hand. "But, we'll figure this out, okay. We can do this."

"That's a riveting and in-depth plan you have there, Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said smiling.

"What can I say?" Derek kissed her again. "I've been meaning to ask, how far along are you."

"Uh, 2 months..."

Derek quickly pulled back again and looked at her with a slightly hurt look on his face. "You're two months along? Why did you wait till now to tell me."

"Because I found out three days ago," Meredith said looking down. She had seen all the signs but she pushed them away thinking she couldn't be pregnant, thinking she didn't want to be pregnant. She was about to become an intern for God's sake, no one wants to miss their first day or week of internship because they got knocked up.

"Meredith, why did you wait so long?" Derek said the hurt look he had had a moment ago had faded into a more concerned look.

"Because, I didn't think it was possible that I was pregnant, peeing on a stick is degrading and unreliable, and three days ago is when I could get an appointment anywhere but your place of employment, because I wasn't ready to tell Addison."

Derek went back to smiling and kissed her again. "That sounds like my wife."

Derek kissed her one last time before pulling away and pushing his door open. "But, as excited as I am, I would like to avoid any potentially embarrassing situations by showing up on time so Mark doesn't ask if we were doing it in the car," Derek said and got out of the car and went to the other side to let her out.

"The man needs a filter," Meredith said with a chuckle as she stepped out of the car and wrapped her coat tighter around her.

"The man needs a lot of things, a filter is only one of many," Derek said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and smiled down at her.

Meredith laughed and leaned into him as they started to walk towards their apartment building. "Very true." Meredith smiled.

They stepped through the door that the doorman had held open for them into the drastically warmer lobby. Meredith pulled her coat off and Derek did too as they walked towards the elevator. They stood there waiting then something occurred to Meredith as they got in.

"Do we have to tell our families?"

Derek looked like he was thinking then seemed to come to terms with something. "When they find out we'll just say we forgot to tell them."

"Sounds perfect." Meredith smiled up at Derek who smiled back as the doors shut.

They got up to their floor and exited the elevator hurrying to their apartment when they remembered they left Mark and Addison unattended and hoped there was still an appartment to go to. When they got to the door Derek pulled out his keys, unlocked the door, and pushed open to reveal that there was at least still a living room. Meredith internally sighed as she stepped in, her heels clicking on the hardwood as she hung her coat up. Derek, who followed her in, shut the door, and followed her lead.

Meredith walked through the living room where the giant windows were showing off Manhattan's night skyline. She turned off into the kitchen which looked...fairly intact, there were a few things out of place and a bowl with a spoon sitting out, but, other than that, it looked alright.

Then Meredith walked into the dining room where Mark and Addison where standing with giant smiles on their face and the table, set for four, was filled with food.

"So," Addison started, still beaming. "How'd you do?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure I passed with flying colors." Meredith chuckled as Addison squealed and pulled her into a hug, almost crushing her.

"That's great!" Addison said releasing her so Mark could take his shot. She felt herself being squeezed and picked up by Mark and started laughing.

"I knew you'd do it," Mark said spinning her. "You are the best, afterall."

"And don't you forget it."

Once Meredith hit solid ground again the four of them moved to sit at the table and dig in as some of them hadn't eaten all day.

"Oh, Addie, this is so good," Meredith said.

"Well, thank you. The recipe is from my great-grandmother, she was a great cook."

"You remeber your great-grandmother?" Derek asked.

"Yeah, she was 100 when she died, I met her when I was 12," Addison answered after she swallowed her food.

"I've always wondered, because your great-grandmother lived to 100, will you?" Mark asked Addison who shrugged.

"God, I'd have someone shoot me up with morphine the second I can't walk anymore, I can't image living to be 100," Meredith said.

"Who's shooting you up with Morphine?" Derek asked.

"Me," Mark said. "But she has to take me with her."

Addison shook her head and then seemed to remeber something. "Speaking of family, did you...ya know," Addison said to Meredith nodding her head slightly at Derek.

"Yes, I know, but I am quite offended that you found out before me," Derek said jokingly.

"Sisters before misters," Addison said and Meredith laughed.

"Hey, I dedicated my life to her, I think that trumps your whole sisters or misters bullshit," Derek said.

"Nope, I'm sorry, I'll always be the first to know, Derek, that's just how it is. Sisters are forever," Addison said.

"Well, I'd hope marriage was forever too," Derek responded. Addison seemed to debate something but when she opened her mouth to say it she was cut off.

"Wait, what?" They all looked at Mark who looked severely confused as he looked between the three of them, obviously not liking being out of the loop.

"Mark, I'm pregnant, that's what we are talking about." Meredith watched with a smile as Mark's face went blank and then lit up like a little kid on Christmas.

"My baby sister's having a baby? I'm going to be an uncle?"

Meredith smiled, "Yep, you're going to be an uncle."

Mark beamed and she could feel Derek smiling at her while Addison chuckled.

"That kid is going to be so spoiled." All four of them started laughing. It was this moment that Meredith was reminded why she was so against moving. When the world around her seemed to be going to hell, the four of them were always able to laugh, able to smile, able to hold each other up. She didn't want to leave because she didn't want to leave her people. She needed her people. She loved her people.

Meredith smiled as the laughter died down and everyone went back to eating and chatting. She was going to miss this. She didn't know what she was going to do when she and Addison couldn't drive through the city for hours, or when she and Mark couldn't go get their coffee together because all their breaks lined up, or when she and Derek couldn't jump on a random train and go to a random place and experience it, or hop on a ferry and just...go. She didn't know what she was going to do without her life. She would make a new one, is what she had told herself, she would make new friends, and she would go to the beach or go to the mall, but that wasn't her life. She had a life, and a good one, and she wasn't ready to give it up, not when it's just started.

Meredith took a bite of her hardly touched food, and looked around to see Derek, Mark, and Addison laughing at something Meredith had been too lost in thought to hear. So she looked down at her slightly swolen stomach. She guessed there was a lot of change coming, a lot of change that she was going to have to deal with.

She looked back up and huffed. She hated change.

"Derek Christopher Shepherd, you better be fucking kidding me." Meredith was currently standing in the middle of the woods with a box looking at a trailer that Derek was trying to pass off as their new home.

"What?" He asked coming up to stand by her, also looking towards the trailer.

"You want me to live in that?" Meredith asked incredulously looking up at him.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad," Derek said turning to face her.

"I just drove across the damn country, and you bring me and your unborn child home to a trailer in the middle of the woods?"

"Now that you say it out loud..."

"Uh uh." Meredith stacked her box on top of Derek's and pulled out her phone clicking through the contacts until she came across the one she wanted.

 _"Brigham And Women's Hospital, how may I help you?"_ Meredith heard after two dial tones.

"Yes, can you connect me to Dr. Ellis Grey please," Meredith asked and saw the look of confusion spread across Derek's face.

 _"Uh, may I have your name please?"_

"My name is Adelaide Grey-Shepherd, I'm her daughter."

Meredith heard silence only broken and some shuffling and hurried whispering.

 _"We're connecting you right now, ma'am, we apologize for the delay,"_ Meredith wad left again until she heard a familiar voice over the receiver.

 _"Hello?"_

"Ah, yes, Mom, I'm calling to offer you a way to rid yourself of your final tie to Seattle, Washington." Derek raised his eyebrow as Meredith grinned up at him.

 _"And that would be?"_

"How much are you willing to sell the house for?"

"Now, this is a house Derek," Meredith said mockingly at her husband as she walked up to her childhood home only to receive a mock glare from him in return before the two of them started laughing.

"So we live here until I finish building our house?" Derek asked looking around as he stepped into the house.

"Yep, so we don't have to stay in that stupid trailer you bought." Meredith grinned at his pouty face.

"I was excited to stay in the trailer," he said setting the boxes down in the living room.

"Well, I was not, and I am two votes," Meredith grinned as he pulled her in and kissed her.

"Dream killer," He said smiling down at her.

"Someone has to or else we'd be living in a trailer in the middle of the woods," Meredith said.

"Hey, stop making out in the middle of the living room and come give us a tour." Meredith turned around with a smile and saw Addison and Mark standing in the foyer with suitcases next to them.

Derek and Meredith got them fully inside and passed hugs and greetings around before Meredith started taking them around the house.

"How was your flight?" Derek asked as Meredith took them upstairs.

"Oh, it was awful," Addison groaned. "Mark snored the whole time!"

"You think that's bad? I had to listen to Meredith snore for three days," Derek countered.

"God, I don't know how I get any sleep at night sleeping next to this idiot," Addison said jabbing Mark playfully in the side.

"I'm still trying to figure out how those sounds come out of such a little person," Derek said.

At this point Derek and Addison were laughing and Meredith and Mark were pouting.

"You missed it," Meredith said to Mark while Derek and Addison were still bonding over their spouses snoring.

"I can only imagine," Mark said smirking.

"He took me to a trailer, in the woods and expected me to live there, in the woods, next to bears."

"Oh god that's awful...Addie would have loved it," Mark said and Meredith laughed.

"That's why they have us, to keep them out of the woods and away from the bears," Meredith said smiling.

"Yeah, but they keep us adventurous," Mark said and Meredith nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, without them we'd be holed away in an apartment somewhere eating the exact same food everyday, taking the exact same train, going to the same boring job," Meredith said smirking.

"Mark out the food part, you'd be eating the same take-out everyday, we all know your burn down your apartment if you ever had to make food." Meredith shoved Mark as he laughed and Meredith rolled her eyes.

"I can cook food, Mark," Meredith said.

"Wait, is burnt toast a food?" Mark laughed again as Meredith smacked Mark.

Meredith watched Mark stay out of her reach as he continued to laugh his ass off as they walked back down the stairs. Smart man.

"And that concludes the tour," Meredith said turning to face them holding her arms out once they had gotten down the stairs.

"A very beautiful home you have, Mrs. Shepherd, but Mark and I will not have a hotel room tonight if we don't go check in now, so I guess that is our cue to leave." Addison said said looking at her watch.

They all said their goodbyes and Addison and Mark got their suitcases out the door and were putting them in their car before Derek shut the front door.

"It was nice of them to come all they way out here to help us unpack," Meredith said as Derek walked towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Yes, very nice, now where was I?" Derek said as he kissed her and started leaving a trail of kisses down her neck.

"I don't know, but you should really continue," Meredith groaned.

"I'd be happy to."

 **A/N**

 **Welcome to chapter 2 of Of Rain and Hot Messes. It was fun to write and I hope you enjoy it. It is a little short, but I hope you like it none the less.**


	3. In the Beginning, We were Happy 3

Meredith always struggled to understand people. What they do, why they do it, when they do it, it was just never something she was good at. If someone wanted Meredith to know something, they better come right out and say it because Meredith sucked at reading in between the lines. But it never bothered her. She was content and had come to terms with the fact that she was a blunt person with no time for the in between. However, there were times she wished she could.

Now was one of those times that she wished she had that ability. She was six and a half months pregnant, great. Addison and Mark just show up on their doorstep claiming they want to be there when the baby is born, perfect. But when both are the case, then something is wrong, but the question was what.

Meredith and Derek are healthy, Addison and Mark are healthy, and the Shepherd's were healthy, there were no dead parents, siblings, children, or pets to be heard of, and no one was giving birth, yet; therefore, Meredith saw no reason for Mark and Addison to fly out to Seattle. Meredith was sharp, maybe not when it came to people, but she was wicked smart, and there were things that weren't adding up.

Meredith knew she was staring as Addison rambled as she drove, but she needed to know what. She knew something was up, but she needed to know what.

"You're staring at me Meredith," Addison said glancing over at her sister before looking back at the road.

"I know," Meredith said, still staring with her eyes narrowed.

"Uh, why?" Addison said, shifting a little. Addison was fairly unlucky in one aspect of her life, Meredith Shepherd was fucking scary. Now, when she told her fellow interns that she had a kick ass sister that will bring you to your knees with a look, she was laughed at. The next day Addison saw Meredith part waters in Mount Sinai with just how she carried herself, she even heard a fellow intern ask if a new attending was brought in, and Addison had been proud to say that it was her sister bringing her lunch. Heck, she had even scared an attending when he had gotten in her way.

Now, add the, 'you are currently crossing me, so either shut the fuck up or start explaining yourself' look, and everyone knew to run in the opposite direction. Although, Addison was very much trapped at the moment and unable to run. Running was more of a Meredith move, but Addison did like to use a few of Meredith's tricks when it came to situations like this.

"Because you are acting weird, really weird, and you know it's bad because even I've picked up on it," Meredith said, still looking at Addison.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Addison said hurriedly. God, was this the slowest traffic light on planet earth or what? Addison shifted again under Meredith's gaze, but thankfully the light turned green and Addison was allowed to focus back on navigating Seattle's dark streets.

Meredith huffed as she turned forward again crossing her arms over her chest. "Fine, I'll leave it but I just want you to know that I-"

Addison had no idea if she'd ever hear the end of that scentence.

She watched almost in slow motion as she went towards the air bag, and only saw Meredith get thrown into the passenger side window before her vision was filled with tears and the airbag and all she could feel was the consequent pain that erupted around her body. It seemed like hours before she could move and she turned her head to see Meredith who was covered in blood, lots of it coming from her head as Addison saw the cracked window where her head had hit and wondered how she was even awake. But she was and her mouth was moving, but Addison couldn't hear, she didn't know what she was saying, and she moved her head again to look out where the windshield should have been and saw two police officers talking outside before one of them ran to her window. He was saying something, but she couldn't tell what, and he stopped looked behind her, assumingly at Meredith before he started working on getting her out of the car.

He pushed the airbag out of the way and undid her seatbelt before pulling her out of the car, she tried to stand up but she couldn't and only ended up collapsed in the cops arms and he laid her down on the ground, and she saw the other cop come around the car, carrying and talking to Meredith. Addison wanted to tell them about how they needed to stop talking to Meredith as it might result in more damage than there already is, that she was pretty sure there was something puncturing her lung with how hard it was to breathe, about how they needed to start applying pressure to anything that was still gushing blood, but she couldn't, she couldn't do anything.

Meredith's world was spinning, but not in a good way. She could feel herself slipping as the officer laid her on the ground next to Addison. She could feel the shaking start and she could feel blood soaking her clothes, but she couldn't care right then. She needed to know her baby was okay, she needed to know if Addison was okay, that's it that's all she needed to know. She laid and waited for what seemed like hours when she heard the sirens and the flashing lights of the ambulances.

Meredith heard quick chatter that her brain was too scrambled to decifer before she felt an oxygen mask put on her face and a dark skinned woman lean into her field of vision.

"Ma'am, I'm a paramedic, my partner and I are going to move you and get you to Seattle Grace Hospital. I don't want you to talk or move, this a very bad head wound and I'd like you to be alive when we get to the hospital."

Meredith felt herself get moved, but she really needed to make a call.

"Richard Webber," Meredith managed to gasp out.

"Ma'am, I need you to not talk."

Meredith felt the shaking increase and knew a seizure was coming, but she needed this paramedic to call Richard.

"Call," Meredith breathed hard. "Call Richard Webber." That's the last thing Meredith got out before everything stopped.

Richard had never had a calmer day at Seattle Grace Hospital. Everyone was happy and content, and a happy hospital made for a happy Cheif. This was going to be one of the last peaceful times before the next round of interns came in next month, so Richard decided to take a walk around the hospital while there was peace.

This was probably the first round of interns to come through that Richard hadn't been dreading as there were a few gems scattered amongst them. First, a young woman by the name of Christina Yang was coming through the program, top of her class at Stanford and according to all her teachers was on her way to becoming an all-star. There was also Adelaide Meredith Grey-Shepherd coming through this year. The girl was quick as a whip and sharp, and ridiculously good when it came to a scaple, her teacher's words, not his, Richard even got disgruntled emails from Sinai and Columbia that they had snaked her out from under them. Richard had gotten a good smile out if that.

His daughter and his other find were just the tip of the iceberg of what was coming through the program. God, he couldn't wait to see this hospital in a few years. Richard was walking on the OR floor when his phone went off. Who was calling him at this time of day?

Richard answered and what he heard on the other side made his heart drop. So much for a good day.

Richard took off down to the ER and shouted at a nurse to page everybody and their grandmother down to the ER, there was an incoming trauma.

He got down there and saw Bailey, Burke, Neuro, Ortho, and Neo all waiting down there and looking at him weird.

"Cheif, what's wrong?" Burke asked as he stepped out pulling his trauma gown on with a foreboding look on his face.

"Incoming trauma," Richard said simply as he joined them in the line up.

"Was it really necessary to page all of us for an incoming trauma?" Bailey asked confused.

"Well, when that incoming trauma is Meredith Shepherd, the wife of your boss in a few months and Addison Sloan, one of the best neo-natal surgeons in the country and the wife of Mark Sloan, I will page all of you now let's go save their lives so I don't have to attend my daughter's funeral." Richard moved to the Ambulance as the paramedics were getting out.

"Female, 35, identified on the scene as Dr. Addison Sloan, has a penetrated lung, 2 crushed ribs, and a potentially ruptured gallbladder, along with the usual cuts and bruises.

"Okay, Burke, with me, Bailey stay here and take care of Meredith," Richard said and he and Burke pushed the gurney with the help of nurses.

Miranda Bailey knew what fun was, contrary to popular belief, and this was not it. Usually, surgery was fun but not when she was operating on her mentor's psuedo daughter.

"Female, 26, identified as Dr. Adelaide Shepherd in the field. Has had two seizures, between the field and here, is six months pregnant and the baby is in distress, has two broken ribs, a potentially fractured wrist, and there may be fluid build up around her heart."

This was very, very far from Bailey's idea of fun.

She ran to the gurney as neo got steroids in her to help the baby and neuro started assessing the head injury, but then she saw petrified bright green eyes and her heart immediately broke for the girl. This poor thing had been fine a minute ago and now she was being taken to an OR and could potentially die.

Miranda did notice something off though. "Where's the other driver?"

"High as a kite, but perfectly fine," the paramedic said. "It's sick."

Miranda looked down at this girl, who had just been living her life and was now destroyed and the person that destroyed her was walking away without a scratch. That was enough to make Miranda want to be physically sick as they started moving her to an OR.

Miranda sighed as she walked out of the OR. Now she got to go tell her future boss that his wife may never wake up, but hey, he now gets to raise a child by himself and Bailey, unfortunately, ran into Richard on her way.

"Addison is going to be fine, we were able to fix her lungs and set her ribs, and I was able to get her gallbladder out, so she's going to be fine and I get to go tell Mark Sloan that I fixed his wife," Richard said and Miranda just said a mantra in her head. 'Please don't ask about Meredith Shepherd, please don't ask about Meredith Shepherd-'

"And Meredith?" Dammit.

"Well, we took the baby out, healthy little girl, although she doesn't weigh much, with a week or two in the NICU, she should be ready to go home," Bailey said and watched Richard's face change. He could always tell when she was trying to avoid a subject.

"And what about her? What about Meredith?" Richard stopped to look at Bailey.

"Well, we got the baby out safely and we were able to set the ribs and Burke was able to fix her heart...but her brain just wouldn't stop swelling..." Bailey trailed off. She really didn't want to tell Richard that the likelihood of her waking up was slim to none, she really didn't.

"Mirnda, no, please tell me she didn't,"

"No, she's not dead yet, but she might as well be Richard. The neuro surgeon said he did everything but there was almost too much swelling. He said she probably wouldn't wake up, but it was up to her family whether she wants extrodinary measures or not as she doesn't have a form here." Miranda sighed when she saw Richard's eyes well up and his hand go over his mouth. "I'm so sorry, Richard, I really am."

"It's not your fault, Miranda," He croaked out. "We need to go tell them, that Addison is okay, and the situation with Meredith, and I'll get someone to go get Meredith's form, she does have a form, I think it just came in today."

"Okay, okay, Richard, I'll go tell them, you just go find that form," Miranda said and gently took Addison's chart. Miranda saw Richard nod his head and walk off. Great, now she had to deal with both of them, alone. She sighed and walked towards the doors that lead to the waiting area where she saw a woman and her child and two men talking quietly to each other and they both looked rough. Their hair was disheavled and they had dark bags hanging under their eyes.

Miranda walked towards them and they didn't notice until she got to right in front of them. "Drs. Shepherd and Sloan?" Miranda asked. As they were the only two men in the room, she had to assume they were, but she just wanted to check.

"Yes?" The one with darker hair said as he stood up, his lighter haired counterpart not far behind. They both towered over her, and she might be a little intimidated had they not looked like lost puppies.

"I'm Dr. Miranda Bailey, I was on your wife's case, Dr. Shepherd, and I am here in place if Dr. Webber, something urgent came up and I will speaking in his place. First, Addison Sloan," Miranda looked up, she didn't know which was Dr. Sloan, so she just started talking, staring at her chart. "She had 3 broken ribs, a punctured lung, and there was some damage to her gallbladder causing them to remove it, she will be making a full recovery." Bailey flipped her chart closed. She looked up, expecting one of them particularly relieved but they weren't they were equally relieved, but they were also still concerned.

Easier topic first, Miranda. "Well, the baby did have to be delivered early, but she is a beautiful baby girl and is very healthy. She will be out of the NICU once the rest of her organs fully develop and she gains a bit more weight."

She saw smiles break out on their faces, god if only they knew. "Wait, can we go see her?" The man with dark hair said.

"Yes, but you might want to hear this first." Miranda watched their smiles drop.

"Now, Meredith had two broken ribs which we were able to set, there was some free fluid around her heart that was caused by a shard of bone that broke off, but Dr. Burke was able to fix that, and she suffered a massive brain injury caused by when her head was thrown into a window." Miranda swallowed hard and tried to ignore the looks on their faces. They were doctors, one of them was in neuro, they all knew where this was going. "They said there was too much swelling, that she would probably never wake up, but if she did, he couldn't imagine the types of dissibilities she would have to live with. I'm so sorry, we did everything we could."

Miranda watched the one with dark hair go blank, like his brain wasn't able to comprehend what was happening while the one with lighter hair fell back into his seat, almost like he was pushed, and the look of shock on his face wouldn't go away.

"You're telling me that my baby sister may never wake up," the one with light hair said looking up at her.

Miranda swallowed hard, "That is, but it depends on what she's put on her form. If she doesn't want extrodinary measures, we will be required to take her off life support." Miranda watched the dark haired one, Dr. Shepherd based on what the other man said, fall back into his seat also.

"Dr. Sloan, Dr. Shepherd." Miranda turned to see Richard walking towards them with bloodshot eyes and a blue folder.

"Richard..." Dr. Sloan trailed off once he saw the folder. "Please tell me she wasn't an idiot."

Miranda had no idea what that ment, but the words seemed to carry a lot of weight between the three. Miranda saw no reason why she would have marked do not recesitate, or don't take extrodinary measures. She was a healthy 26 year old with a baby and a husband, she'd be stupid to.

"No, she gave herself a week and she does want to be recestiated, I just don't know if it will matter."

Everything hurt. That's all Addison could think as she slowly opened her heavy eyes. She could feel the cold IV in her arm and the oxygen mask around her face, but she still hurt. Breathing hurt, blinking hurt, and she didn't even want to try to move as he knew it would hurt like hell.

"Welcome back, Dr. Sloan."

Addison carefully turned her head to look at whoever had spoken and found herself looking at an intern. She knew it was an intern because they looked genuinely happy and had that fresh look, not the worn down one she saw on the faces of her co-workers.

"Mer," Addison managed to gasp out. She need to know where Meredith was.

"Ma'am, she's right down the hall," the intern said as she fiddled with Addison's IV bag.

"See her," Addison swallowed, trying to make her voice sound less dry. "I want to see her."

"I'm sorry but none of you are moveable." Bullshit. Addison could see from there that the intern was trying to think of something to detour the conversation. Addison knew she could get into a wheelchair for five minutes. Would it hurt like hell, yes, but could she do it, yes.

"What are you not telling me?" Addison watched the intern fidgit and look out the door before turning her attention back to Addison.

"She's in a coma, Dr. Sloan, they don't know of she's going to wake up or not." Addison's heart dropped. No, her sister couldn't be dead, she was the strong one, she was the one that was hit by a car and came out of it almost completely fine. She couldn't be.

Addison pushed herself up with a strangled cry as pain erupted around her body and tears started running down her face.

"No, ma'am, please get back in bed." She felt the intern try and push her back down, but she pushed her off.

"No, I've got to see her!" Addison barely heard the intern say something when two nurses came in and she felt three sets of arms push her back in to bed, but she didn't make it easy as she thrashed around partly screaming for her sister and screaming because of the pain, but she wanted her sister, she wanted her family and she wanted her now. Finally they had her firmly pinned to the bed and she stopped fighting and that's when the tears started coming, faster and faster. She was able to see Mark, Derek, and Richard come in through the tears and the sobs, but she couldn't do anything but cry.

Her sister was dying.

Meredith didn't want to wake up, she didn't want to open her eyes, she didn't want to feel the pain, she didn't want to, but she did because she could only imagine the hell her family was going through.

She opened her heavy eyelids slightly and saw a nurse doing something on the wall and she could hear someone faintly talking but it was unfamiliar. She tried to talk, but she stopped once she felt the tube going down her throat and decided that she didn't want to talk either way. She tried moving her hand also, but was only successful at moving a finger as everything else was numb. She couldn't move her head, it was too heavy and numb, she couldn't speak, she could barely make out anything, and the rest of her body was just about as useless, so she shut her eyes again, she didn't like how bright it was anyway and if she fell asleep again, she wouldn't have to deal with the pain and the numbness and the disconnect she felt between her head and her body. That was until she felt something move and she felt the air stop coming through the tube.

Did they just disconnect her? Her eyes opened blearily again and that's when she heard 'and her heart will cone to a stop'. No, no, no, she was awake, she didn't want to die. She made it, she did it, she woke up, she didn't want to die. She felt it get harder to breath as she gave out a strangled cry as her heart rate increased on the monitor, which was the only thing she could see, she saw the nurse whip around startled and she felt someone grab her and a short, dark skinned woman enter her vision.

"Meredith?" She heard faintly and saw that it was the dark skinned woman talking. "Meredith, can you hear me?"

Meredith wanted to nod her head, but she still couldn't move it, so she just made a sound and hoped that the woman understood.

"Hook her back up, and will someone page neuro? We've got a living miracle on our hands."

Meredith had no idea what she was talking about, but Meredith took it as good as the woman kept smiling between her and the monitors. She felt her breathing become easier again but suddenly her eyes got heavy again. No, no she didn't want to go back to sleep.

"Meredith, sweetie, it's fine, we pushed sedatives so you wouldn't feel anything. Go back to sleep, I've got you and I won't let you go." Meredith didn't know what else she could do but trust the woman as the darkness overtook her again. She heard a slam followed by some mangled shouting, but she was too far gone to do anything.

Meredith groaned in pain as she opened her eyes again, but this time to a different sight than last time. Derek was asleep on the edge of her bed and Addison and Mark were on a the other side, Mark asleep on her other hand and Addison asleep next to him. This was way better than waking up to being unplugged.

Meredith tryed to move anything, but found she couldn't and the disconnect she felt was back. It was like she would think, but her body wouldn't do it, but the disconnect was very suddenly overshadowed by something else. Her baby was gone.

Meredith panicked until she finally saw the last occupant in the room. She saw Richard smiling down at a bundle of pink in his arms and all Meredith could do was smile, which was easy to do as she realized there was no more tube.

Richard looked up, probably to look at her and noticed she was awake.

"Meredith!" Apparently that was loud enough to get everyone's attention, she saw three heads shoot up and saw three very panicked looks turn into smiles.

There was only one thing left that Meredith hadn't tried out yet.

"If you ever try to unplug me again, I will come back solely to fuck your shit up."

"What happened?" Meredith knew it was a question from out of nowhere, but she was curious. She was walking around the kitchen bouncing her baby, which they had named Cynthia Adelaide, with Addsion sitting at the table mindlessly flipping through a magazine, waiting for the boys to come back with groceries to start on dinner. Meredith saw out of her eye Addison's head shoot up and confusion painted cross her face.

"What?" She asked.

"What happened in the car crash? Who hit us? What happened while I was asleep, because I do clearly remember waking up to being unplugged. I'm still bitter about that by the way."

She saw guilt wash over Addison's face, and she winced realizing that was a bit brash. Meredith was being unplugged probably to the dismay of everyone.

"Well, we were hit by a 17 year old boy and his two friends, and they were all high." Meredith heard the bitterness in Addison's voice, but chose to ignore it. Honestly, she was a bit pissed about it, too.

"Did they die or what?"

"Unscathed, they all walked away with nothing but a cut. The police have no idea how, but it was probably because they were driving some big ass truck and we were in my car." Meredith turned around with wide eyes. She almost died, Addison could have died, her baby could have died, but the people that did that to them got off scott free?

"Also, in the hospital, you-you gave yourself a week on life support, but you crashed four times. They started telling us that maybe taking you off was better for everyone, and after the fourth time you crashed we agreed to take you off, we just couldn't watch you be in pain anymore anymore," Addison wiped away a stray tear. "We left the room to give Bailey room to work and I didn't want you to hear me ugly sob before going into the great beyond. We stood outside the glass doors with Richard and let Bailey teach how to unplug someone. Next thing we know you're awake and everyone was freaking out."

Meredith just shook her head. "You should have known better than to give up on me."

As Meredith stood their staring at Addison, the two of them smiling, all she could do was stand by her statement. She didn't know why people did things, why they got high and drove, or why they wore the blue top versus the red one, or why they ate cereal instead of toast. She just didn't, the motivation behind people's actions were beyond her, but she did understand one thing, and that was how to be pissed when the motivations screwed you over.

 **A/N And** **chapter 3 and the final chapter of the prologue. I hope you liked this chapter, because I liked writing it. And as always, I would love to know what you think and Ivipe you have a wonderful day.**


	4. In Which Meredith Yells a Lot

"Okay, remember, no inappropriate touching, no kissing, no talking about our mutual child, and no calling me your wife because today you are my boss. Wait, scratch that, you're my boss's boss," Meredith said as she and Derek walked towards the doors of Seattle Grace Hospital.

Derek stopped her before the doors and smiled down at her. "I remember the rules, and I would never do anything to put a target on your back," He gave her a quick kiss before he walked just in front of her.

Meredith scurried around the hospital her auburn ponytail bouncing as she ran around, and kept pulling her skirt down as it's was not made to be run in. Finally she found Richard, who was talking to the group of what she assumed were her fellow interns outside of an OR. Richard noticed her in the back and rolled his eyes and gave her a pointed look before continuing on.

"A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors." Richard said as he pushed open the OR doors to let them in. "Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you, say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty, five will crack under the pressure, and two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play, that's up to you."

 _'No pressure,'_ Meredith thought as she looked around at the other interns.

"Now, get to work!" Richard said and all the interns exited to go get ready for their first day of work.

Meredith walked into the intern locker room and grabbed a locker near a Korean woman who was shoving her stuff into a locker, scrubs laid out next to her. Meredith took her bag off her shoulder and put it in her locker and went to change. Once out, she noticed that it had filled up with interns all in scrubs and Meredith went to her locker to put her clothes away neatly.

"Martin, Parkinson, Bonds, Robbins, come on, you're with me." A resident said as he passed by the locker room and four interns left the locker room in pursuit.

"Only six women out of twenty," Meredith said mostly to herself as she looked around the locker room, but apparently the Korean girl had heard her.

"Yeah, I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, like that's going to help with the respect thing," The girl responded to Meredith's surprise. She had seemed very standoffish, Meredith had never expected her to speak to her.

"Christina, right?" Meredith asked. If someone was going to actually speak to her, she might as well ask her name.

She nodded. "Which resident you assigned to? I got Bailey," She said as she continued to pull her hair back.

"The Nazi? Yeah, me too."

"You got the Nazi?" Meredith turned to see a male intern. "So did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George O'Malley, uh, we met at the mixer. You had the black dress with the lace, and the black stilettos..." Meredith and Christina shot each other a look before going back at the tasks they were doing again.

"Now you think I'm gay."

"Oh, totally," Christina said with a chuckle as she walked away.

"No, I'm not gay, it's, ah, it's just that, you know, you were, I mean, you were very unforgettable." Meredith raised her eyebrow at his statement, but her focus was soon directed elsewhere.

"O'Malley, Yang, Shepherd, Stevens!"

Meredith quickly took off after the short doctor and chose to ignore the look she flashed back at her and the slight pause before her last name. She really hoped she had totally forgotten who she was.

"Bailey?"

"End of the hall," They heard and followed.

"That's the Nazi?" Christina asked as she looked over the short dark skinned woman. "She doesn't look very threatening."

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy," George said.

"I thought the Nazi would be...the Nazi," Meredith said as she had seen doctor Bailey before.

"Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice." Meredith looked incredulously at the blonde behind her.

"Let me guess, you're the model?" Christina asked not even bothering looking back.

Izzie gave Christina a look before holding out her hand for Dr. Bailey. "Hi, I'm Isabel Stevens, but everyone calls me Izzie." Dr. Bailey looked her up and down with a weird look on her face, but promptly ignored her outstretched hand.

"I have five rules, memorise them." Bailey started. "Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, and that's not gonna change. Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run. A run, that's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain!"

Bailey started walking and once they got to a room with what looked like beds in it she spoke again. "On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woke me for no good reason, we clear?"

Meredith knew she was good at math, and raised her hand with a prayer to heaven that her head wasn't chopped off.

"Yes?" Bailey asked.

"You said five rules. That was only four," Meredith said and Bailey's pager conveniently went off.

"Rule number five, when I move, you move." Bailey started running down the corridors, shouting at people to move, with all four of her interns were on her tail. After running through the maze and into an elevator, they ended up at the roof where a helicopter was landing.

"What've we got?" Bailry asked a paramedic as a streatcher was pulled over to them.

"Katie Bryce, fifteen-year-old female, new onset seizures, intermittent for the past week, ID lost en route, started grand mal seizing as we descended." The paramedic said as he helped them into the elevator.

"All right, get her on her side," Bailey said once they got into a room. "Izzie, ten milligrams Diazepam, no, no, the white lead is on the right, righty whitey, smoke over fire, a large bore I.V. don't let the blood haemolyse, let's go!"

After Izzie did the injection and Katie stopped seizing a new doctor entered into the room. He was fairly attractive, tall, and dark skinned, and he was familiar, but she didn't know why, but Meredith's attention was quickly brought back to the present.

"So I heard we got a wet fish on dry land?"

"Absolutely, Dr. Burke." Burke, that's it, he was the Cardio attending that worked on her. Richard had said she'd had some complications with her heart and that his cardio Attending had fixed her up. He had saved her life.

"Dr. Bailey, I'm gonna shotgun her," Burke said as he looked over Katie and her chart. "An otherwise perfectly healthy young girl with seizures like this is, for a lack of a better term, abnormal."

"Shotgun means run every test in the book," Bailey translated. "CT, CBC, chem. seven, toc screen. Cristina, you're on labs; George, patient workups; Meredith, find a nurse and get Katie for a CT, she's your responsibility now."

"Wait, what about me?" Izzie asked the retreating Dr. Bailey.

"You? Honey, you get to do rectal exams," Bailey said with a smirk.

George sat down at the table with the rest of the interns, and looked around to gage how well everyone else's shift was going, and based on the way Izzie was staring at the food with a disgusted look on her face, he could tell he wasn't the only one who's was going awful.

"This shift is a marathon, not a sprint, eat," George said trying to encourage Izzie to eat.

"I can't," She said, pushing the tray away.

"You should eat something, Izzie," he insisted.

"You try eating after performing seventeen rectal exams. The Nazi hates me," she said with a groan.

"The Nazi's a resident, I have attendings hating me," George said sighing at the memory of Dr. Burke.

"You know what Meredith's last name is? Shepherd," Christina said distantly.

"Okay, so?"

"Guess the last name of our new neuro attending," Christina said stabbing her salad.

"Well, based on your violence towards that salad, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's Shepherd." George continued to watch Christina mutilate the salad with a little bit of fear.

"Yep, Derek Shepherd. I'd put money on her being his sister, it can't be a coincidence that they started the same day and just happen to have the same last name."

"And that's a reason to mutilate your salad why?" Izzie asked looking at Christina's shreaded salad.

"Well, I don't feel like watching her get all the good surgeries because she's an attending's baby sister and the three of us have to battle it out for her scraps."

"I mean, I guess you're right," Izzie said looking down at her food.

"Hey, we don't know, maybe it is just a coincidence," George said.

"Awe, does little Georgie not want to admit that his precious girlfriend has a big bad attending for a brother?" Christina moked in a baby voice.

"Well, either way, I hear there is royalty in our midst," Izzie said, the light coming back into her eyes.

"Oh yeah, who?" Christina asked taking another bite of salad.

"Well, I don't know, I just heard that Ellis Grey's daughter was in the intern program this year."

"Shut up, the Ellis Grey?" Christina asked leaning foward.

"Uh-huh," Izzie said smiling.

"Wait, who's Ellis Grey?"

"The Grey method? Where'd you go to med school, Mexico?" Christina said.

"She was one of the first big chick surgeons, she practically invented the abdominal-"

"She's a living legend, she won the Harper Avery. Twice," Christina said, cutting Izzie off.

"So I didn't know one thing," George mumbled into his food.

"I would kill to have Ellis Grey as a mother. I would kill to be Ellis Grey. All I need is one good case," Christina said as Meredith came over with her tray and sat down.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands," Meredith said and looked up to see everyone staring at her. "What?"

"Good afternoon interns." Burke said, walking over and stopping any further conversation. "It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honour of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice. George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an adipectomy this afternoon. Congratulations."

George almost choked. "Me?" He asked tentatively.

"Enjoy," He said with a smile and left.

"Did he just say me?"

"Dr. Webber, may I have a word?" Dr. Bailey asked as she stuck her head into the Chief's office.

Richard put down the papers he was looking at and took his glasses off and motioned for Dr. Bailey to come in. "Of course, come in."

Miranda walked in, shutting the door behind her, and moved to where she was standing a little in front of the desk.

"What can I do for you today, Miranda?" Richard asked with a smile on his face.

"Remember the car crash a month ago that I was on?"

That's when Richard's smile dropped. "Where are you going with this, Miranda?"

"Remember when you told me to save her, Meredith Shepherd that is, because she was like your daughter and the wife of the new neuro attending, my boss, and the mother if his child. I thought you were saying that because I was going to have to see her widowed husband and motherless child at hospital functions of I didn't, because I would have to deal with killing your pseudo daughter, not because I would be killing my intern! Now every time I look at her, I see her mangled, lifeless body with those bright green eyes!"

"Miranda, I'm sorry-"

"No, I am the one who has to see all the times I took paddles to her chest, I have to see the nurse disconnect her, I have to see those lost, frightened green eyes every time I look at her," Miranda said.

"Miranda-"

"And she's married to an attending who she was probably dating for a month before she got pregnant, and they had to rush a marriage because one of them was a Catholic!" Bailey exclaimed and then rubbed her temples.

"Miranda!" Richard said standing up. "I don't usually vouch for relationships like this, a boss with his subordinate, but I will this time, because it isn't a boss with his subordinate. Derek and Meredith dated for a year before they decided to spend the rest of their lives with each other, a year. Since then they have been happily married for seven years and they just now had a baby, it wasn't planned, but they did, after seven years of marriage. Seven years of waking up next to each other, seven years of loving each other, seven years worth of laughing together. If that isn't enough, I wouldn't know what is."

"Wait, seven years?" Miranda asked eyes going wide. Seven years of marriage was a lot longer than 6 months after a Vegas wedding, which is what Bailey initially thought the situation was.

"Seven years, Dr. Bailey," Richard smiled as he saw the look of realization at what the situation really was. "You should go talk to Meredith, your intern, about it. One on one and she will tell you everything. Just, start out by saying you know she's married and to who, then she'll answer all your questions."

"Yeah, I'll be sure too," Miranda said, her work persona coming back as she turned and walked towards the door with a hand on her hip.

God, Meredith was already a basket case and it was only day one.

"Katie Bryce, 3604?"

"It's right there," a nurse said pointing to a hallway.

"Thank you," the woman said as she and a man ran in the direction the nurse pointed.

"Katie, honey, mom and dad are here," the woman said running into room 3604.

"They gave her a sedative for the CT scan," Meredith said as the parents ran to her. "So she's a little groggy."

"Will she be all right?" Katie's mom asked.

"Our doctor at home said she might need an operation, is that true?" The father asked before Meredith could respond to the mom.

"What kind of operation?" Katie's mom asked looking up with fear in her eyes.

"She's, um, well, you know what, I'm not the doctor. Uh, I'm a doctor, but I'm not Katie's doctor, so I'll go get him for you." Meredith smiled, obviously uncomfortable with all the questions being thrown at her. Meredith ran out of the room to find Bailey.

"What?" Bailey asked not looking up when Meredith ran up to her.

"Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them, or do I ask Burke?" Meredith asked.

"No, Burke's off the case, Katie belongs to the new attending, Dr. Shepherd. Not you Dr. Shepherd, the other Dr. Shepherd, he's over there."

Great, this was perfect, she just hoped Bailey didn't make the correct connection unlike her fellow interns. She really didn't need her boss not liking her because she was married to her boss. Either way, Meredith needed the patient's parent's questions answered, and the only way to do that was to talk to her husband.

"Dr. Shepherd, I need to talk to you," Meredith said, trying her best not to fiddle with the rings around her finger, which over the past seven years had developed a calming effect on her.

Derek looked down at her and immediately looked concerned. Oh great, she gave him the wrong idea. He thinks something is wrong.

"It's not-" She was cut off by Derek dragging her behind him into the stairwell.

"Dr. Shepherd."

"I didn't realize one of the rules was that you couldn't call me Derek," Derek smiled.

"Actually, it is, Dr. Shepherd."

"So this is what I get for seven years of marriage?"

"Derek, now isn't the time," Meredith said looking around, but her attention was brought back to Derek as he pulled her into him.

"Now isn't the time for a lot of things, Dr. Shepherd," He said smiling down at her.

"Now you are just taking advantage of me," Meredith said, grinning.

"Oh no, we are not going into who took advantage of who," Derek said and Meredith laughed.

"Derek, I did not take advantage of you, we've talked about this." Meredith laughed and Derek was still grinning.

"I was drunk, vulnerable and good-looking and you took advantage."

"I didn't know one glass of wine was enough to get you drunk, Dr. Shepherd." Meredith grinned as he kissed her. She knew he was breaking every single rule...Oh god, they were breaking the rules.

"Okay, no, stop." Meredith said and pushed away from him and looked up at a very disappointed Derek. "You're an attending, I'm your intern...stop looking at me like that. "

"Like what?"

"Like you've seen me naked." That only made Derek smirk at her and made her a bit more annoyed.

"And I would love to see you naked again. We could always sneak into an on-call room. No one would ever know." He said and took a step forward.

"Dr. Shepherd, this is inappropriate." Meredith chuckled.

"What are you going to do, tell HR? Help, my husband won't stop looking at me with those eyes I adore and I can't keep my hands out of his awesome hair and I think I'm just a bit too flexible for my own good." Derek started kissing her and pushed her up against the wall.

Flexible, wait a second. "Derek," she said, trying to make her vice normal as her husband started trailing her neck with kisses. "Katie, she does rhythmic gymnastics."

Meredith moaned and grabbed her husband's head before he got her to the point that she couldn't get back from.

"Okay, I know, why?" Derek said clearly annoyed that she stopped him.

"Okay, she has no headaches, no neck pain, her CT's clean, there's no medical proof of an aneurysm -"

"Right."

"- but what if she has an aneurysm anyway?" Meredith finished.

"There are no indicators," Derek said as he meet Meredith's eyes.

"She twisted her ankle, a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant and she fell. When she twisted her ankle, she fell. It was no big deal, not even a bump on the head, you know she got right back up, iced her ankle and everything was fine, it was a fall so minor her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history, but she did fall."

"You know the chances that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm are one in a million! Literally."

"I know, I know." Meredith sighed with her hand on her head and walked towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Derek asked, confused.

"To think," Meredith called back as she walked out.

"What have I missed?" Meredith asked as she walked into the gallery and looked down at George who looked like he was going over something in his mind.

"He's going to faint. He's a fainter."

"Naaah, code brown. Right in his pants." Meredith rolled her eyes. That was George down there, not anyone's competition.

"He's all about the flops, he's going to sweat himself unsterile," the first intern said.

"Ten bucks says he messes up the McBird," Another intern chimed in.

"Twenty says he cries," Christina said from next to her.

"I'll put twenty on a total meltdown."

"Fifty says he pulls the whole thing off. That's one of us, down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?"

"Seventy-five says he can't even ID the appendix," Christina said after A pause making Meredith roll her eyes.

"I'll take that action," Izzie said.

They all watched George do the operation almost perfectly, although Meredith could tell he was timid. He opened up, identified the appendix, removed it and now all he had to do was invert the stump and pull up on the purse strings and he will have done a almost flawless appendectomy. That was until he ripped the purse strings.

"Uh...uh..."

"C'mon, George, you gotta find the purse strings," Meredith whispered as she saw George begin to flounder.

"Think," They heard Burke say. "You start the suction, and you start digging for those purse-strings before she bleeds to death. Belky, give him a clamp."

"BP's dropping!" A nurse shouted.

"He's choking," Christina said, leaning forward.

"Come on, George, find the purse strings," Meredith said, tempted to shut her eyes.

"Today... pull your balls out of your back pocket, let's go. What are you waiting for, suction?"

"Getting too low folks... Dr. Burke..."

"Get out of the way," Burke said shoving George out of the way. "Pansy-ass idiot. Get him out of here. Suction. Clamp."

"007," Alex Karev said from behind her.

"007, yep, that's a total 007," Another intern agreed.

"What's 007 mean?" Izzie asked

"Licensed to kill," Meredith answered with a sigh.

"007. They're calling me 007, aren't they?" George asked once he walked into the tunnel.

"No one's calling you 007," Meredith said.

"I was on the elevator and Murphy whispered 007 and everyone started laughing," George deadpanned.

"Oh, how many times do we have go through this, George, five, ten? Give me a number or else I'm going to hit you," Christina said before shoving potato chips in her mouth.

"Murphy whispered 007 and everyone laughed," George repeated.

"He wasn't talking about you," Izzie said.

"You sure?" George asked a little unbelieving.

"Would we lie to you?" Meredith asked.

"You? Oh, yes, totally."

"007 is a state of mind," Christina said through a mouth full of chips.

"Yeah, listen to Christina, George," Meredith said, huffing.

"Say the girls who finished top of their classes at Stanford and Columbia," George retorted. "Maybe I should've gone into geriatrics. No one minds when you kill an old person."

"Surgery is hot, it's the Marines, it's the macho, it's hostile, it's hardcore. Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have sex."

"I've got to get my own place," George moaned.

"4B's got post-op pneumonia. Let's start antibiotics," Alex Karev, another intern, said to a nurse.

"Are you sure that's the right diagnosis?" The nurse asked unsure.

"Well, I don't know, I'm only an intern. Here's an idea, why don't you go spend four years in med school and let me know if it's the right diagnosis. She's short of breath, she's got fever, she's post-op. Start the antibiotics," Karev said and then walked towards Meredith. "God I hate nurses. I'm Alex, I'm with Jeremy, you're with the Nazi, right?"

"She may not have pneumonia, you know. She could be splinting, or have a PE," Meredith said.

"Like I said, I hate nurses."

"Did you just call me a nurse?" Meredith asked turning to face him.

"Well, if the white cap fits..."

Meredith wasn't able to retort as her pager went off as a 911 for Katie Bryce.

"I'll deal with you later," Meredith said as she took off at a sprint towards Katie's room.

"She seeing anybody?" Karev asked as Meredith ran off.

"I don't know," George said, watching her run off.

"She's hot." Karev whistled appreciatively.

"I'm friends with her. I mean, kinda friends, I mean, not, you know, actually friends, not exactly, but we're tight. We hang out. I mean, really only just today -"

"Dude," Karev said cutting George off. "Stop talking."

"What do we have?" Meredith asked as she ran into the room to see Katie having a seizure.

"What took you so long?" A nurse asked.

"I'm sorry I wasn't standing outside the door waiting for her to have a seizure, now someone tell me what we have!" Meredith said moving over to Katie

"She's having multiple grand mal seizures, she's got Diazepam 2mg, and I just gave her a second, now how do you want to proceed?"

"Okay, is she full on Prazepam?"

"She's had 4mg," a nurse said.

"Did you page Dr. Bailey and Dr Shepherd, because I did and no one is here yet."

"The Prazepam's not working."

"Phenobarbital, load her with Phenobarbital." Meredith said. Meredith knew a lot, like a lot, it's what she gets for being friends with some of the best surgeons, but she was slowly running out of ideas and she was losing Katie. Fast.

"Pheno's in," the second nurse said.

"No change," a third nurse responded.

"You paged Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Bailey?"

"I just told you," the third nurse said.

"Well page them again!"

"What do you want to do?" Meredith almost didn't catch it as her brain was full. She had thousand of ideas running through her head almost like a computer. "Dr. Shepherd, you need to tell us what you want to do!"

"Heart's stopped! She's in v-fib!" A nurse shouted.

"Code blue, code blue! Code blue, code blue!"

They pulled the crash cart in and Meredith immediately grabbed the paddles. "Charge pulse of two hundred."

"Charged. Clear."

"Still v-fib, there's no response," A nurse said.

"Charging. 19 seconds."

"Charge to 300," Meredith said.

"300, anything? 27 seconds."

"Dammit Katie, work with me. Charge to 360," Meredith yelled as she shocked her again only to see the straight line. "Come on, Katie."

"49 seconds."

"At 60 seconds you're supposed to admit her -"

"Charge again!" Meredith looked back at the nurse. "I said, charge again!"

Meredith saw Katie's body react to the charge. "Anything?" Meredith asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I see sinus rhythm."

"Blood pressure's coming up," the second nurse said.

"All right now...Pressure's returning and grid's coming back..."

That was when the always punctal Dr. Shepherd decided to show up, after she had been left floundering for who knows how long.

"What the hell happened?" He asked as he ran in.

"She had a seizure and her heart stopped, so I recesitated," Meredith said simply as her head was still fuzzy from the information overload.

"You were supposed to be monitoring her," He said as he grabbed her chart.

"I was, why do you think I got here a whole hour before you mosied on in." Meredith stalked out of the room, not even wanting to hear whatever retort her husband came up with, and started down the hallway to see Dr. Miranda Bailey coming right for her.

"You get a 911, you page me immediately, not in the five minutes it takes you to get to the emergency, immediately. You are on my team, and if somebody dies it's my ass," Bailey shouted. "You hear me, Shepherd?"

Meredith whipped around to face her. "Loud and clear, Dr. Bailey, and I guess I'm supposed to ignore the fact that not only did I page you when I got the 911, but also had three nurses page you while I pumped a teenage girl with every medicine we have because she wasn't responding and then recestiated her. All. By. Myself!"

Meredith started walking again, she didn't know where she was going or why, all she knew was that she was really close to punching something.

"Meredith?" Meredith ignored Christina as she continued to walk outside into the rain. The rain usually had a calming effect on her but it did nothing for her now, so she resorted to the next best thing, kicking the tree as hard as possible. So now, here she was, her forehead pressed against a tree and a very broken toe.

"I yelled at my resident and an attending," Meredith said, her face still pressed to the tree.

"God, you have balls."

"You said it was a seizure disorder. Now you're saying it isn't?" Katie's father asked, frustrated.

"I'm saying that I don't know," Derek said trying to inform the parents of Katie's condition, and it wasn't going so well.

"Well, what do you think it could be?" Her mother asked.

Derek sighed. "I don't know."

"When will you know?" Katie's father asked, obviously very frustrated.

"I don't have an answer for you. For now, Katie is stable -"

"Wait one damn minute," Katie's father said cutting him off. "We came here because this hospital is supposed to be the best in Washington. That's my kid in there, my kid, And you have the audacity to stand here and tell me I don't know?"

"Mr. Bryce, -"

"No, I want someone else. A doctor who knows what they're doing. You get me someone else, someone better than you."

"Mr. Bryce, I assure you that I am working hard on Katie's case," Derek said trying to get through to the father.

"No, you're not. If you were, you'd be able to give me some answers."

Derek sighed and walked away, figuring it would be best so no party got too harsh. Now, he was desperate and he found the one person who could end his desperation, so as he walked by he grabbed her by the arm and drug her behind him.

"Dr. Shepherd, what are you doing?"

"We are going to see if Katie is one in a million, Dr. Sheperd."

"I'll be damned," Derek said as he looked at a scan with Meredith. "There it is."

"It's the aneurysm," Meredith said, amazed.

"It's minor, but it's there. It's a cerebachnoid haemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain." Derek said staring at it. "She could've gone her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot -"

"And boom," Meredith said still dumbfounded that she was actually right.

"Exactly. Now I have to fix it. You did great work today Mer, and as much as I would love to stay and kiss your ass, or any other part of you really, I gotta tell Katie's parents she's having surgery." Derek stood up and headed for the door.

"Oh, by the way," Derek said stopping and turning around. "Can I expect to see you in surgery?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Great," he said smiling before he walked out.

Meredith was standing in the OR watching Derek prepare Katie for surgery.

"I promised I'd make her look cool. Apparently, being a bald beauty queen is the worst thing that happened in the history of the world," he said laughing.

"Did you choose me for the surgery because of...you know what?"

"Is that what we are calling our marriage now, you know what?"

"Derek, I'm being serious," Meredith said putting her hand on her hip.

"Yes," Derek said completely straight faced and Meredith almost smacked him.

"I'm kidding." He said after a pause and about the point he started fearing for his well-being.

"I'm not going to scrub in for surgery. You should ask Cristina or Izzie or someone that isn't me," Meredith said putting her hands up.

"You're Katie's doctor, and on your first day, you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case to the finish. You...you shouldn't let the fact that we are married get in the way of you taking your shot. Plus, you're the only intern I fell comfortable with being within 50 feet of this OR."

"Is that because you trained me to be a good little Neurosurgeon?" Meredith asked with a smile.

"Oh, totally. I'm not about to lose someone as talented as you to plastics," Derek said chuckling.

"I think I can hear Mark shouting at you from Boston," Meredith said smiling.

"Yeah? Well tell him to shove it."

Meredith laughed as she walked out of the OR.

"I wish I wanted to be a chef. Or a ski instructor. Or a kindergarten teacher, I have been told that I am good with kids." Meredith said as she sat on the floor with George.

"You know, I would've been a really good postal worker. I'm dependable. You know, my parents tell everyone they meet that their son's a surgeon. As if it's a big accomplishment. A superhero or something. If they could see me now..." George laughed to himself.

"When I told my mother I wanted to go to medical school, she tried to talk me out of it, said I didn't have what it takes to be a surgeon, that I'd never make it."

"What did you tell her?" George asked looking at Meredith.

"That she should shove it seeing as the only thing she could do correctly was a wipple," Meredith said, laughing at the memory.

"We're going to survive this, right?" George asked.

"Oh, I'm going to survive. Actually, scratch that, I'm going to thrive. You? We'll have to wait and see on that one." Meredith laughed as George pushed her and she grabbed a chart and stood up.

"I've gotta deal with this."

Meredith walked into the ER with her chart only to see Richard chewing out Alex Karev. Oh, this was going to be good.

"She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?" Richard asked.

"Oh, yes sir, I did," Alex said, clearly trying to cover his ass.

"And what did you see?"

"Oh, well," Alex stuttered out. "I had a lot of patients last -"

"Name the common causes of post-op fever," Richard said looking at the flailing intern with what Meredith knew was disappointment.

"Uh...yes, sir," Alex said as he pulled a notebook out of his pocket.

"From your head, not from a book. Don't look it up, learn it. This should be in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever."

"Uh...the common causes of post-op..." Alex trailed off and it was obvious he had no idea.

"Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?" Richard asked loudly, looking around the room. Everyone stilled and someone even pulled out a note book. Meredith waited a moment to see if anyone else knew. To her disappointment, that was a strong none.

"Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five Ws. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia's easy to assume, especially if you're too busy to do the tests," Meredith said after a pause and gave a pointed look at Alex who looked down.

"What do you think's wrong with 4B?" Richard asked her expectantly as he turned to face her.

"The fourth W, walking," Meredith said confidently. "I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary ambulus."

"How would you treat?"

"Spiral CT, VQ scan, provide O2, dose with Heparin, and consult for an IVC filter," Meredith said proudly.

"Do exactly as she says," Richard told Alex. "Then tell your resident that I want you off this case."

"Good day, Meredith Shepherd." Richard told her with a smile as he walked out of the room.

"Who's a nurse now?" She asked Alex smugly but all he did was glare at her.

"All right everybody, it's a beautiful night to save lives. Let's have some fun." Meredith smiled as Derek got to work.

"See, I told you, big brother Shepherd is just going to hand her advanced procedures, and we get to fight for her scraps," Christina said from up in the gallery.

"I know... she's such a bitch," Alex said, still nursing a wounded ego from what happened earlier.

"Hey, too far," Christina said turning to face him. "Just because she's being handed surgeries doesn't mean we get to call her a bitch."

"Oh my God, he's actually letting her participate, she's not just observing!" Izzie exclaimed looking down at how he was letting her hold a tool that was currently sitting inside someone's brain.

"Okay, now that's just mean. Look, he's not even letting the resident do it, he's asking the intern," Christina said.

"Maybe you should give her the benefit of the doubt," Dr. Bailey said and everyone stared at her. "What? Even from here I can tell that Dr. Shepherd is way more comfortable and her hand is way more steady than that residents."

"She's still an intern, and it's still unfair," Christina grumbled as she leaned back.

"I say we just let it go," George said.

"Awe, is little Georgie upset we are picking on his girlfriend?" Christina asked mockingly.

"N-no," George stuttered.

Dr. Bailey rolled her eyes as the other interns started picking on George. Her only question was how had they missed the wedding rings on her finger. She had been litteraly wearing them all day, and she saw the way Dr. Shepherd looked at her and she really hoped that wasn't how he looked at his sisters. God, she was literally stuck with some of the dumbest interns.

"Dr. Shepherd, can I talk to you?" Meredith turned around to see Dr. Bailey walking towards her.

"Uh, yeah?" Meredith was not expecting Dr. Bailey to say anything to her after she snapped at her earlier about the pager thing. Oh god, maybe she was in trouble. She really didn't want to be on scut for the next year.

"Okay, let's go sit down." Meredith was really confused as she followed Bailey over to the lobby and sat down across from her. Both of them were in their street clothes and it was weird seeing Bailey without her scrubs.

"What did you need, Dr. Bailey?" Meredith asked slowly, fairly concerned.

"Well, Dr. Webber told me to talk to you about some, uh, questions I have, and he said I should start off by saying I know you are married, and to whom you are married." Meredith's heart froze and her eyes went wide. How had Bailey found out? "And before you freak out, I know because one I'm intelligent and two, I was your doctor during the car crash, so Dr. Webber told me you were Derek Shepherd's wife." Okay, that made Meredith feel a bit better.

"What would you like to know?" Meredith asked wiping her hands on her skirt.

"These will be semi-personal, but how long have you been married?"

"Oh, uh, seven years," Meredith responded.

"So, you were twenty when you got married."

"Uh, nineteen," Meredith said.

"Nineteen?"

"I graduated early," Meredith said and watched Bailey seem to shake it off.

"And, you weren't forced into anything, right?" Meredith was shocked at the question.

"No, of course not, why would you think that?"

"It's just...hard to know why a nineteen year old, a teenager, who's just starting out, would decide to settle down with a man who was in his late twenties."

"That ninteen year old settled down with that twenty seven year old man because she was stupidly in love, and the twenty six year old is still stupidly in love!" Meredith stood up and grabbed her bag. "And I don't know why I should have to sit here and explain my marriage to you."

"Shepherd, you are my intern now, which means that I am now responsible for you. Part of that entails that I am now on your side, firmly on your side and in your corner, but to be on your side, I need all the facts. I just want to make sure you are okay and that you are safe."

Meredith was a bit taken aback with the sentiment she was getting from the Nazi. "Uh, thanks Dr. Bailey, but I promise you I am okay."

Bailey sighed. "Meredith, I'm going to be honest, right now, every time I look at you I remeber you being pulled out of the back of an ambulance all bruised and bloody and staring at me with those bright green eyes. I, just, I'm trying to make up for not being for you then."

Meredith was again taken aback by the sentiment, although she understood the source a bit better now.

"Dr. Bailey, I am okay. I promise you that I'm fine. I'm not bruised and bloody anymore, and I'm definitely not stuck in a loveless, abusive relationship. Now, if it's all the same to you I really want to go home and see my baby."

Bailey sighed and waved Meredith off. "Fine, just go."

She could tell now that Meredith Shepherd was going to be an anomaly, an anomaly that she was going to be quite fond of.

Bailey was told that training interns was like raising children. She thought that it was only going to be the physical side of parenting, getting them potty trained, and teaching them social skills. She didn't realize that the emotional side came with it.

And she already didn't like it.

 **A/N: I'm sorry this is out late, but I hope you enjoy anyway, and I am always welcome to your imput and criticisms.**

 **Bye.**


	5. In Which Alex Saves the Day

**A/N: I forgot this the first time, but this will be a trigger warning, as this is a bit more tragic the second go around.**

Meredith groaned as her alarm went off. She repeatedly slammed her hand down on her nightstand until her hand found the alarm clock, but she just ended up knocking it off her nightstand.

Derek turned his head bleary eyed over to see Meredith trying to go back to sleep and shoved her. "Get up."

"You first," Meredith said with her back still to him.

"I don't have to go in till ten, you've gotta be there at five," Derek said. "I'm pretty sure you don't want the Nazi on your ass."

"I'm pretty sure Bailey and I have come to an understanding," Meredith said. "Did you know that she knew about us?"

"I figured," Derek said. "She was your doctor."

"You know, she interrogated me about our marriage." That made Derek wake up.

"What?"

"Yeah," Meredith said rolling over to look at her husband with a smile. "She wanted to make sure you didn't con me into marriage with your good looks and superior wisdom."

Derek smiled down at her. "Did you tell her who was really taking advantage of who?"

"My god, shut up before I get a divorce." Meredith smiled as he kissed her and she rolled out of bed, keeping the sheet wrapped around her.

"You can get the papers, but I'll never sign!" Derek called jokingly and he heard Meredith laugh and the shower start running.

Meredith entered the locker room with a yawn to change. She had not had a good morning, and she was very not ready for the day, but she had to go. She couldn't just ditch work.

"Long night?" She looked over to Christina, who looked almost as rough as she felt and looked apparently.

"Very, very long night," Meredith almost growled as she shoved her stuff into her locker. She wished she could just fall off a cliff, but apparently that wasn't an option.

"Well, get your head up, peppy, cause here comes Bailey," Christina said picking up a tray with one coffee in it that had been sitting next to her as she got up.

"Ooh, you're bringing bribes now?" Meredith asked Christina as they walked down the hallway.

"It's not a bribe," Christina retorted.

"What's not a bribe?" Izzie asked as she and George joined her and Christina.

"Christina bought Bailey coffee as bribe, probably to get into the OR today," Meredith responded smiling at Christina.

"It's not a bribe, it's a mocha latte," Christina said.

"If that isn't a bribe, I don't know what is."

They all saw Bailey coming at them and all got quiet. "George, you're running the code team, Meredith, take the trauma patients, Cristina, deliver the weekend labs to the patients, Izzie, you're on sutures."

"Dr. Bailey. I was hoping to assist you in the OR today, maybe do a minor procedure? I think I'm ready. Mocha latte?"

"If she gets to cut, I want to cut too," Izzie said.

"I wouldn't mind another shot," George said. "I mean if everybody else is..."

"Stop talking. Every intern wants to perform their first surgery, that's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No. Why? Because my interns are whining. You know what will make me look happy? Having the code team staffed, having the trauma patients answered, having the weekend labs delivered, and having someone down in the Pit doing the sutures," Bailey said, taking the Mocha Latte. "No one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy I'm Mary freakin' Poppins."

"Mocha latte my ass," Meredith whispered.

"Why're y'all standing there? Move!"

Meredith moves towards the elevator to get down to her patients only to be greeted by the cheery face of her husband. Oh joy.

"Seattle has ferry boats," Derek said after a pause. That wasn't random at all.

"Yes, it does," Meredith said slowly, debating whether or not to turn around.

"I didn't know that. We've been living here six months, I didn't know there were ferry boats," Derek said almost like he was offended.

"Oh my God, Derek. Seattle is surrounded by water on three sides," Meredith said turning around to face him.

"Hence the ferry boats, now I have to like it here. I wasn't planning on liking it here. I'm from New York, I'm genetically engineered to dislike everywhere, except Manhattan, I didn't even like Boston for the year we lived there, but you know I have a thing for ferry boats. Well, you know, I could have learned to love it, cause I do have a thing for something else."

"And what would that be, Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asked.

"You," He said, smiling down at her.

"I'm not sleeping with you at this hospital. You're my boss."

"I'm your boss's boss," Derek interjected.

Meredith rolled her eyes, "You're my teacher, and my teacher's teacher."

"I'm your sister, I'm your daughter."

"Oh, Addison? When did you get here?"

"Rude."

"Hey, you are about as whiny as she is," Meredith said smiling which caused Derek to snort.

"I don't think anyone is as whiny as Addie."

Meredith shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. "At least Addison doesn't sexually harass her subordinates," Meredith said smiling.

"I'm just riding in an elevator."

"Look, I'm drawing a line, well another one since the first one didn't make it's point. The line is drawn, there's now a big line."

"So, this line, is it imaginary, or do I need to get you a marker?"

Meredith stares at him for a second, drops her arms and kisses him. Derek was just a tad surprised but caught on pretty fast as he shoved her against the wall of the elevator, that was until the elevator doors dinged and Meredith quickly pulled away so she could walk out and let a heard of other people in. Derek just stood there bemused by his wife's behavior.

Meredith walked into the ER with a stack of files she had grabbed on her way down, but was quickly stopped by a nurse.

"You the surgeon?" A nurse quickly asked her.

"Yes," Meredith said, slightly startled.

"We've got a rape victim. You better get in there," She said gesturing to a room. Meredith nodded, set the files down and hurried into the room.

"21-year-old female found down at the park, status: post-trauma, she came in with a GCS of 6, BP 80 over 60, head trauma, unequal breath sounds, right pupil is dilated, and she's ready for x-ray. You ready to roll?"

Meredith saw a pair of shoes in the bag of personal belongings, that happened to be the same pair of shoes she had worn in today, but she quickly shook her head and responded. "Yeah. Call it in to clear CT, let them know I'm coming, load up the portable monitor, call respiratory for a ventilator, I'll get x-rays while I'm down there."

And when she moved she saw her face, albeit broken, she had seen this girl. She had seen her in the park on her way into work. She had seen her because she had dropped a school book that Meredith returned to her. Then she started remembering her trip through the park.

 _Meredith loved this park. It always had a calming effect on her, so she would walk through with a cup of coffee and just enjoy being there in that moment, something every doctor needed ever now and again. The reminder of life outside the sterile halls and ORs._

 _Meredith smiled at a girl as she walked back and was sort of startled by the similarities between the two of them. They both stood about the same height, they both probably weighed about the same and she couldn't have been too many years younger than Meredith, but she did notice her shoes, they were the exact same as Meredith's. Although, that was about where the similarities ended as her hair was a dark brown unlike Meredith's auburn hair and her eyes were brown which were dissimilar from Meredith's bright green eyes._

 _The girl nodded with a smile and kept walking. Meredith looked back at the path in front of her and saw that the girl had dropped what looked like a textbook._

 _"Hey!" Meredith called as she picked it up. "Is this yours?"_

 _The girl turned around and realization of what was in Meredith's hand dawned on her._

 _"Oh my_ _God, yes, thank you so much," she said as she jogged back to grab the book._

 _"It's no problem," Meredith smiled at the girl and continued down the path. A few moments later she came across a man. He looked really jittery and nervous and...determined? She couldn't tell but she didn't like it so she decided to ignore him. That was until he ran into her causing coffee to go everywhere_.

 _"Oh my god, sir, I'm so sorry." Meredith looked at him apologetically but he looked like this was the first time he had seen her and then his look changed, becoming more...predatorial was the best word to describe it._

 _"Um, sir?" Meredith was very uncomfortable at this point and turned to walk away when she felt him grab her wrist stopping her and making her turn to face him._

 _"Where do you think you're going?"_

 _Meredith's fight or flight response kicked in and she tried to twist out of his grip by pulling out of her jacket but that only got it ripped and he grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her chest and picking her up. Meredith started screaming as loud as she could as she struggled in his grip._

 _She couldn't fight him, she knew that, she was 5'2 and consitantly around 100 pounds, she needed to get away. She kept screaming but managed to get one of her arms free and drive her elbow into the side of his neck. He coughed and dropped her. She felt herself drop and the consequent slamming of her head into the ground. She disorientedly tried to push herself up dispite what will be a pretty bad cut later, but was forced back onto the ground with one arm pinned behind her and one next to her face. She felt tears run down her face, but still tried to get him off her._

 _"Don't worry, this won't hurt. It might even feel good."_

 _She tried to_ _scream, but he had to much of his weight pressing her chest to the ground, she felt like she was suffocating. She felt him rip her shirt out from where it was tucked into her skirt, and move his hand up her skin and she wanted to vomit. She felt the tears come faster but there was nothing she could do she had tried squirming out from under him, but had only put herself in a worse position._

 _"You've never dressed like this before, it's nice. It's hot."_

 _She felt him move his hand up to where the back of her bra was and run his hand under it stopping to fiddle with the strap and she whimpered. She had to get away._

 _"Don't worry, we won't do anything here. What if someone sees us?"_

 _Meredith felt him run his hand down her side and down her thigh, and she felt him shift his weight off her head. Bingo._

 _Meredith took her already bleeding head and knocked his arm of hers freeing hers enough to drive her elbow into his side, knocking him off of her, she got to her feet, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her back to the ground, she screamed and kicked him in the face._

 _"Hey! What are you doing!" She heard someone shout and immediately hand on her ankle dissapeared and she sighed with relief. He was gone._

 _"Are you alright?" She heard a familiar voice ask. "The guy bolted, I couldn't find him even if I tried."_

 _Meredith finally looked up and found herself looking at Alex Karev._

 _"Meredith?" He asked helping her up. "God, are you okay."_

 _"Oh, oh yeah, I'm fine." Meredith moved to grab her bag and ruined coat and stood up to see Alex standing there with his arms crossed. "What?"_

 _"You are very obviously not alright, not after whatever the hell that was. If it's the Nazi you're worried about, I can talk to her." Meredith bristled at Alex's statement. What did he care, he called her a nurse and a bitch from what Christina had told her._

 _"I'm fine, Karev," Meredith said forcefully, tucking her blouse back into her skirt._

 _"Fine, but let me walk you the rest of the way to the hospital, if not for you, for me."_

 _Meredith sighed, "Fine, but you better not pull anything."_

 _"What do you think I am Shepherd, stupid? No one better be pulling anything on you, especially_ _after that."_

 _Meredith sighed and looked at Alex. "Fine...walk me to the hospital." Meredith smiled as the two started walking._

 _"That's a nasty cut."_

 _"Shut up."_

Meredith thought she was a vomit then in there, but she had to help this girl. He wasn't allowed to win.

"She's going to spend a hell of a lot of time in recovery and rehab," Derek said as he operated.

"If she survives," Burke said.

"What is she, like, 5'2-," Yes. "-a hundred pounds-" yep, just about. "-and she's still breathing after what this guy did to her? If they catch the guy, they should castrate him." Totally agree.

"See how shredded her hands are? She tried to fight back," Burke said.

"Tried to? Rape kit came back negative. She kicked his ass," Derek said. Meredith put her face into her shoulder. Her need to vomit hadn't gone away and it kept getting worse.

"So, we have a warrior among us, huh?" Burke asked.

"Alison," Meredith said once she could take her face out of her shoulder. "Her - her name is Alison." Meredith hoped her voice didn't sound too shakey.

"I think I may have found the cause of our rupture," Burke said and pulled something out and Meredith puked in their mouth. "What is this? Does anyone know what this is?" Burke legitimately asked staring at it in confusion.

"Oh god," Meredith said after she swallowed the bile.

"What?" Burke asked and he was unfortunately looking right at her. "Spit it out, Mini Shepherd." Mini Shpherd...that was a new one.

"One, I'm not that mini," Meredith started as that was the easier thing to say before she gulped. "She bit it off."

"One, you are like 5'1, 100 pounds," Burke started out. "Two, Bit off what?"

"That's his...his penis. She bit off his penis," Meredith got out but it made Meredith feel better when she saw Burke practically throw it into the tray.

After the surgery, Derek and Burke were washing up when Burke spoke. "If she can fight off the infection she'll be fine."

"That's all dependent on whether she wakes up in the next 72 hours," Derek said looking through the windows.

"You know, we should get a drink later. You can tell me the long story of what makes a hot-shot doc and his...person leave the Big Apple for Seattle?" Burke asked looking at Derek.

"It's a short story actually. Your chief of surgery made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Derek said and smiled.

"Richard asked you to come?" Burke asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh, nothing," Burke said looking back foward.

Derek looked Burke over once with a suspicious look before grabbing a towel to dry his hands. "See you later," Derek said and left.

Christina was walking down the hallway when George ran up to meet her. Out of all the interns, George was the most annoying, he was like a little kid blindly navigating trough a dark forest pretending there was light.

"Do you know what the code team does? Saves lives. I shock a heart and someone lives to see another day. It's upbeat, it's glass half full." Case and point.

"Bambi, don't say another word until after the hunter shoots your mother," Christina said, really not bothering to look up.

"I don't like you," George said disgruntled.

"Well, I have a B.A. from Smith, a Ph. D from Berkeley, and an MD from Stanford and I'm delivering lab results. It's going to take me all day to get through these,"

"Then get started."

Christina whipped around to see Miranda Bailey. "Oh, uh, I wasn't complaining. I-I don't -"

"This intern was reassigned, so he's mine, now," and Bailey gestured back to an intern which was...Christina would like to retract her previous statement, she had a new least favorite, Alex Karev. "Have him shadow you for the day. You show him how I do things."

"Alex Karev, nice to meet you," Alex said.

"The pig who called Meredith a nurse and a bitch? Yeah, I hate you on principle."

"And you're the pushy, overbearing kiss-ass. I hate you too," Alex retorted.

"Oh, should be fun then," Christina said turning away from him.

This was not only humiliating and degrading, but it was making her physically sick.

"Hi, is the chief in?" Meredith asked trying to keep her voice steady.

"He's on his way... is that it?" The woman asked pointing to the cooler.

"Yeah," Meredith said with a forced smile.

"Can I see it?" The woman looked between the box and Meredith's disgusted look and her smile dropped. "Forget I asked."

"Meredith, it's good to see you." Richard hugged Meredith and looked down at her and the contorted look on her face. "Are you okay?"

"Peachy." Meredith smiled up at her psuedo father.

"You look like you are about to vomit...you aren't pregnant again, are you?"

"Oh god no," Meredith said, pulling away.

Richard put his hands up in defence. "Just thought I should make sure." Richard moved to sit at his desk and smiled. "What can I do for you?"

"Listen, so they said to bring this to you, so...?"

"Ah, yes, for the police."

"Right," Meredith said.

"When did the police say they'll come?" Richard asked the woman who walked back in.

"You know how slow they are. So she'd better take it with her."

"What?" Meredith asked her eyes going wide. Carrying this thing around for five minutes was making her gag. She wanted it gone.

"You have to take it with you," the woman repeated, slower this time.

"Chain of custody rules. All medical matter in a rape must stay with the person who collected it until it's placed in police custody," Richard said apologetically then saw the face that Meredith made before she puked and got genuninly concerned. "Are you sure you are okay?"

Meredith took a moment to compose herself. "Yep,"

"You collected the specimen, so you have custody," the woman said looking warily at Meredith.

"Oh god, okay." Meredith promptly ran out of the office.

Meredith was so disgusted as she ran out of the office and through the hospital, she was physically relieved when she set the cooler down in front of George.

"What's that?" George asked staring at the cooler.

"Don't ask," Meredith said turning away with her hand over her mouth. "You don't want to know."

"I do want to know, really," George said, thuroughly intrigued.

"You really want to know?" Meredith asked and turned to look at George who enthusiastically nodded. "It's a severed penis."

"Oookay, I didn't really want to know," George said and looked at Meredith who was looking at him with a 'no kidding' look.

"I don't know why I have to be the one who gets hugged," Christina complained as she walked towards them, Alex in tow.

"Because I don't do that. Besides, you're the ovarian sister here."

"Did you just call me an ovarian si- an ovarian - since when has the possession of ovaries become an insult?"

"Meredith's carrying a penis around in a jar," George said.

"Oh, from the rape surgery?" Christina asked looking at Meredith, also thuroghly intrigued.

"Yeah, and it's not a jar, it's a cooler," Meredith said pacing.

Talk about taking a bite out of crime," Christina joked, walking away.

"You okay?" Alex asked. "And what's this talk about a rape surgery?"

"Yeah...walk with me," She said, and started dragging Alex.

She made it outside and found the nearest grassy area...and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the ground.

"Meredith, what's wrong?"

"The park Alex, the park!" Meredith cried still leaned over.

Alex gulped and moved towards Meredith. "You'll never even see him again. You shouldn't dwell in it."

"Yes I will because I have his severed penis!" She shouted trying not to cry.

"What?" Alex asked, really confused.

"The rape surgery, I saw the girl in the park, we passed each other. The guy didn't run for it, he ran to plan b! Oh god, she looked just like me, we had the exact same pair of shoes on!" Meredith fell to the ground sobbing.

Alex looked around then sat down next to Meredith and awkwardly wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I'm so sorry."

"Why are you sorry, Alex? You saved me. That could have been me on that table in that OR, but it wasn't because you were there. That's something I'll never forget." Meredith smiled up at Alex who gave an awkward smile back. "You don't smile much do you."

"No," Alex said and the two of them started laughing. It was probably inappropriate, but Meredith didn't care as it made her feel better.

"You know what we need?" Meredith asked after they were done rolling with laughter.

"What?"

Meredith and Alex stood outside the windows to the nursery and Alex was cooing at the babies.

"And you call Christina the ovarian sister," Meredith laughed.

"Are you a mom?" Alex asked catching Meredith off gaurd.

"What?"

"I mean you are married, I see the rings, do you have any kids?"

"Yes, I do, her name is Cynthia she was born a little more than a month ago... I never took you for the sensitive person, or someone that cared." Meredith looked over at Alex with a smile as he shifted from one foot to another.

"I mean, I'm not really."

Meredith smiled as she looked back at the adorable babies that just make her miss her own baby. She smiled at one in particular and then choked when she saw it's face turn blue.

"Oh no," Meredith said and then ran around to the door taking the stethoscope out of her pocket.

"Meredith, what are you doing?" Alex asked as he followed her. "We aren't supposed to be in here."

Alex watched as Meredith listened to a babies heart, and gulped when an intern walked in.

"What are you doing in here?"

"There were no tests ordered, and the baby has a murmur." Meredith said taking her stethoscope off.

"I know," the intern said.

"He turned blue!"

"You're surgery, you're not authorized to be in here. Do you know how much trouble you can get into for this?" The intern said, but Alex knew she just wanted her out.

"Are you going to do any tests?" Meredith asked putting her hands on her hips.

"It's a benign systolic ejection murmur, it goes away with age," the intern said.

"So you're not going to do any tests?" Meredith asked with raised eyebrows.

"He's not your patient, he's not even on your service."

"Are you sure it's benign?" Meredith asked looking are the baby again.

"I'm a doctor too, you know. You need to get out of here," the intern said.

Meredith sighed and walked out, Alex right behind her.

"I've gotta get my penis," Meredith said walking.

"And I've got work to do. Hey, don't let some stupid penis throw you off your game," Alex said and then turned down a hallway.

Meredith stood and watched the rape victim and all she could think about was how close she was to that being her on that bed.

"Meredith, I've called every hospital in the county. Sooner or later, the guy that did this is going to seek medical attention, and when he does, that penis you're carrying around is going to nail him," Derek said as he came and stood next to her. Meredith knew that, but it took everything to not start sobbing.

"Where is her family?" Meredith asked quietly.

"Doesn't have any," He said sadly.

"No siblings? Cousins? Grandparents?" She asked. At least if she was lying there, she'd have an army around her, but this girl, this college student with her whole life ahead of her, had no one.

"No. Both parents are dead, she just moved to Seattle three weeks ago for college. Welcome to the city." Derek turned to her. "Meredith, you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine, I just...have to do something. I have to go." She said looking down and walking away.

"Dr. Burke?" Meredith called. She had been running around the hospital trying to find this man and she had finally done it.

"Mmm?"

"There's a baby up in peds, I saw him have a tet spell, and I think I hear a murmur," Meredith said as she walked with him.

"Mmm. Did peds call us for a consult?" He asked.

"Actually, no, they're not doing anything about it -"

"So you want me to what?" He asked cutting her off.

"If you could just go up and look at him -"

"Mm-hmm, not without a peds consult."

"Yeah, but -"

"I'm a busy man, Mini Shepherd, and there are rules. Look, it's not like I'm the Chief of something," He said.

Meredith and Christina walked through the lobby, Christina with a coffee and Meredith with her penis.

"What were you doing down here?" Christina asked.

"Just just walking around here with my penis, cause I have nothing else to do, what about you?"

"Hiding from Alex," Christina said.

"He's not that bad if you give him a chance," Meredith said.

Christina scoffed at her but chose not to say anything making Meredith roll her eyes.

"I am having a bad day." Meredith said.

"Mmm. George said every time someone mentions the rape victim, you get all weird. What's that about?" Christina asked.

"It was just a rough morning." Meredith rubbed her temples and Christina stopped to stare at Meredith. "What?"

"I'm trying to decide if you are are just overexagerating or if your morning was really bad enough that you could compare it to that of a rape victim."

"It's just...I was attacked in the park today," Meredith said sighing.

"Like verbally or did someone physically attack you?"

Meredith lifted the few peices of hair that she let hang down her face and showed the fairly large cut going from the base of her hairline up into her hair and held out her hair to show the scrape marks. "I was physically attacked in the park today."

"Oh my God. Meredith, why didn't you say anything!" Christina exclaimed grabbing her hand and examining them.

"It's fine, they are all just superficial," Meredith said, but let Christina look her over anyway.

"Are you sure? Did you have Dr. Shepherd look at you, make sure there wasn't a concussion?"

Meredith's answer was cut off when they heard a car swerve and ran out the doors. Meredith distantly heard Christina shout that their conversation wasn't over, but it was all drowned out by the sight before her. A man staggered out of his car, his clothes soaked in blood, but it was worst around his crotch area. He collapsed and in seconds and there were doctors and nurses swarming him, but Meredith could only stare.

She heard Christina shouting at her, but in some kind of trance she helped pull the gurney.

"Meredith, talk to me, you look like you are going to pass out. Is it your head?" Christina turned away from her friend who looked like she was in shock to have someone page Bailey and security. "Meredith, please, say something."

"This was the man that attacked me in in the park..." Meredith trailed quietly.

"What!" Christina shouted. "Him? Are you sure?"

Meredith nodded numbly and Christina looked like she was about to freak out, but like the soilders they were, they kept pushing the gurney.

"So, what've we got?" Bailey asked as she ran towards her two interns who looked oddly somber.

"Take a look," Meredith said quietly.

"What?" Bailey asked then looked where Meredith had gestrured and realized what they were saying. "All right, let's get him into OR 1. Christina, you call the chief and let him know we got the rapist.

"I saw Alison," Meredith said trying to start a conversation and get Christina to stop staring at her every five seconds. "You can't believe the beating that she took and then to see this..."

"It's like that old saying, you should see the other guy," Christina said and Meredith noticed her looking right were Meredith's cut was.

"Why are we not attempting to reattach the severed penis?" Bailey asked.

"Teeth don't slice, they tear, you can only reattach with a clean cut, like if she wanted to slice him off with a knife...Besides, the digestive juices didn't leave much of the flesh to work with," Meredith said.

"Right, so what do we do?"

"Sew him up minus a large part of the family jewels which will mean he'll be urinating out of a bag for a very, very long time and he'll never be able to have sex again," Christina said. "Its a shame."

"Let's all take a moment to grieve... Clamp."

"My head hurts," Alex complained as all the interns sat down in the tunnel.

"Maybe it's a tumor," Christina said.

"Yeah, you wish I had a tumor."

"Look, I'd rip your face off if it meant I got to scrub in," Christina said truthfully.

"I have been suturing all day. My hands are numb," Izzie said as she walked in and plopped down.

"At least you're helping people," George said sounding depressed.

"At least you get to practice freaking medicine," Alex retorted.

"I had to send one Chinese lady away. She was like, camped out down there."

"Oh, poor Izzie, turning away patients, boo-hoo," Christina mocked. "None of us had it as bad as Meredith did, though."

"So the police say that they can't send down the crack crime scene guy for hours. So I have to spend the night with a penis. Alex, don't say it."

"Ahh, it was too easy anyway," Alex said half-heartedly. He hadn't planned on saying anything. Meredith had a really rough day and now she had to spend the night with her attackers severed penis.

"Who here feels like they have no idea what they're doing?" George asked putting his hand up followed by everyone else. "I mean, are we supposed to be learning something, because I don't feel like I'm learning anything."

"Except how not to sleep," Izzie said.

"It's like there's this wall, and the attendings and the residents are over there, being surgeons, and we're over here, being..."

"Suturing, code running, lab delivering, penis-minders," Meredith said bitterly.

"I hate being an intern," Alex complained.

After being run out by Bailey, Meredith ends up back near the babies when she sees the parents of the boy she's worried about.

"Hi," Meredith said kindly as she approached them.

"Hi," the mother said not taking her eyes off her baby.

"Is he yours?" Meredith asked.

"Yeah," the mother said smiling.

"He's adorable," Meredith commented also with a smile.

Meredith starts talking to the parents about the concerns she has when the peds intern comes up to them.

"You are so out of line."

"She says the murmur might not be benign," the father asked the intern.

"I think we should do an echo to check," Meredith said.

"This is your career," she said and Meredith watched the intern leave presumably to get her resident.

"There really is no reason to get alarmed," Meredith told them and turned to see the intern and resident come her way.

"What's the problem?" The resident asked looking at the parents.

"If our baby is sick, we want him treated. Now," the mother said sounding concerned.

"Who said your baby was sick?" The resident asked, confused.

"Her, the surgical intern who has no business on our service," the intern said gesturing at her.

"Who authorized you being here?" The resident asked.

"I was just, actually-"

"I did. Could you excuse us for a second?" She heard Burke say from behind her and she watched Burke and the resident leave to talk.

"Dr. Burke."

"Are you messing with my intern, Dr. K?" Burke asked.

"No, sir," the resident, Dr. Kerr, said.

"Give me the chart," Burke said holding his hand out expectantly.

"There's nothing wrong with him, I checked," the peds intern said.

"Are you sure?" Dr. Burke asked crossing his arms.

"Yes," the intern said.

"You can guarantee that he is fine, you are 100% sure."

"How sure are you?" Kerr asked after seeing the hesitant look on her face.

"I don't know, 75%?"

"Not good enough. He's my patient now, that okay with you, Dr. Kerr?" Burke asked.

"Absolutely," Kerr said.

"He can take our patient?" The intern indignantly asked her resident.

"He's an attending," he said

"Which means I can do whatever I want," Burke said and returned to the parents. "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I'm Dr. Burke, head of cardio, we're going to run some tests and give you an answer within the hour."

"Shepherd, I want an EKG, a chest x-ray, and an ECHO. I don't have all day."

"You're a busy man," Meredith responded.

"I'm a busy man."

"Well?" Meredith asked walking up to Dr. Burke.

"It's a birth defect. Tetrology affirmed lower pulmonary artresia. You were right. I'm booking the OR for tomorrow," Burke answered, flipping through a chart.

"Thank you for backing me up on this," Meredith said.

"Whoa, whoa, wait, whoa, you were right, but if you ever pull a stunt like that again...going to the parents behind a doctor's back? Trying to steal a patient from another service? I will make your residency year hell on earth," Burke said and Meredith nodded. As a mother, she wanted to yell at Burke about how a baby almost dided because a peds intern didn't check her boxes, but as a surgical intern she knew she crossed a line.

"Yes sir," she said and watched Burke walk away.

"How is she?" Meredith asked as she walked towards her husband.

"No change," he said sighing.

"Have you been here all night?"

"No, I went home to see Cynthia for about three hours, then I came back... You know I have four sisters, a brother, a mother, a wife, and a child. If I was in a coma, they'd all be here. I'd want them here. Having no one? Can't imagine that," he said smiling at her.

"Me either. I even think you, Addison, and Mark would have a race to see who could get to my bedside faster, hell Richard might even join you, and the other interns and Bailey would be peeking in to check on me, your family and their metric butt ton of kids would be here... and then my mother would show up a week after I woke up tell me how disappointed she was in me, tell you to get a haircut, wash Mark's mouth out with soap, and tell Addison to stay away from me with her car, and leave five minutes later." Meredith smiled then turned back to Alison. "How do we end up so screwed up?"

Meredith watched Alison flatline with panic and was quick to hit the alarm on the wall as Derek ran in.

"Her ICP's double, get an OR, put her in for a craniotomy!" Meredith nodded and helped Derek start moving her as she made the call.

Meredith stood in the scrub room washing up after the surgery and Derek joined her in there.

"She's not going to make it, is she?" Meredith asked as she stared straight foward.

"She's going to be fine."

"If she ever wakes up," Meredith said with a pointed look at Derek.

"Burke! I'm off at six, you want to get that drink we talked about?" Derek asked Dr. Burke.

"No, I don't think so," he responded.

"Well, what about tomorrow night?" Derek countered.

"Shepherd, you should know that Richard promised chief to both of us, but you knew that already."

"Keep your friends close and your competition closer," Derek said with a smile.

"We'll be using a medium approach for a trans-ventricular repair with a right ventriculostomy. Let's open him up. Shepherd!"

"Yes, sir?" Meredith asked.

"Go scrub in. When we've finished cracking the baby's chest, I'll let you hold the clamp."

"Seriously?" Meredith asked.

"Don't make me change my mind," Burke said.

"I'm going," Meredith said then quickly went to scrub in.

Derek entered the rapist's room and whacked the end of the bed to wake him up.

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is Dr. Bailey stopped your bleeding. The bad news is we're giving your penis to the cops. Have a nice life."

He leaves as the rapist realizes he's cuffed to the bed and falls back down with a groan.

Meredith stood in front of her bathroom just staring at herself. She had finally gotten Cynthia to go to sleep so she took the time to herself to check the scratches and scrapes and the bruised wrist and irritated shoulder and elbow.

She stood there with her hair pinned back and a tank top and pajama shorts on so she could see the full scope of what had happened to her.

Christina had made her go to the police and file a report, not to press charges but to just hopefully get some sort of peace. But it didn't help and now all she could do was stand there and look at herself through the tears, and she hated it. Alison was lying in a hospital bed dying and she was standing here crying. What was wrong with her.

"Meredith, I'm home!" She heard Derek call, but she couldn't respond or move. All she could do was stand there.

She heard the nursery door open and shut and then she heard the bedroom door open.

"Meredith?"

And then she saw him in the reflection of the mirror staring at her while the tears were still streaming down her face, she couldn't turn to face him, she couldn't move, it was even hard to breath.

"Oh god, Meredith what's wrong?"

"I ment to tell you, I went to the park today," Meredith gasped out, trying to keep breathing. "I wanted to walk through it on the way to the hospital with coffee. I just wanted some fresh air before work."

She watched Derek step into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

"I got my coffee and was taking a stroll, but I walked passed this girl, and I noticed how similar we were. Same height, same weight, our hair was cut the same length, even our noses looked similar, our noses. To top it all off, we were even wearing the same pair of shoes." The tears were coming down faster this time. It wasn't the first time she had gone through the events, but it was the first time she had been through the emotions that went with it. And she could see Derek standing confused behind her, he still had no idea where she was going with this.

"She was in college, I know that because she dropped a textbook. She was a college student with her whole life ahead of her, but she thanked me and we headed on when I had given her back the book. Then, three minutes later I come across a man who was so caught up in his own world that he didn't see me until he was wearing my coffee. Then he finally saw me and something changed in his head, and he got a look like, like." She just paused for a moment, she had described it as predatory on multiple occasions, but that wasn't it, looking back now. "Like he had just won a game. That's it, he looked at me like he had just won a game...and then he attacked me, and then, by no easy means, he pinned me to the ground, and he..." Meredith trailed off, knowing if she finished, she might puke.

Meredith swallowed. "And the Karev just happened to be in the right place at the right time and scared him off. Christina took me to the police, to fill out a report. They told me that the only reason I was attacked was because I fit the basic profile of Alison. That they had the same classes, and he was going for her, but stumbled upon me."

"I went into work and I saw a nice young girl lying beaten and bloody on a table, and then Burke kept calling Mini Shepherd, not because I'm a mini version, but because I'm little. I'm 5'2, 100 pounds. Today has been the first day in my life were I was acutely aware of my stature. Then I started thinking how that literally could have been me on that OR table and when we joked about how there would have been people around us and races to see who could get to our bedside first...It took me a minute, but I realized that the only thing that stopped that from actually being a real scenario was Alex Karev."

"Oh, and don't get me started on being chained to the guys penis all day. It literally made me physically sick. I had to exit the hospital at one point so I could go vomit on the lawn. I went into work this morning to forget about it, not to have to carry around a constant reminder of it."

That was the last thing she said before Derek had enveloped her in his arms. She guessed he had heard enough and she thought she had gone through enough to sort it away and forget. She guessed all she needed to do was talk it through. Not talk through the events, but talk through the emotions with someone she felt safe with. And he made her feel safe and cared for and loved. A concept that had been foreign to her for a long time in her life.

 **A/N Here it is.**

 **Also, I've decided to answer questions here as long as it doesn't give anything away really.**

 **-Cynthia is not in the Hospital's daycare because, one, it'd be a little weird for one of them to walk in with a baby. Two, Cynthia is still a baby which is still young for daycare.**


	6. In Which Christina Finds Her Voice

Meredith rolled over with a groan to look at her alarm clock. _1:45 a.m._ Meredith sighed as she pushed herself up and out of bed making her husband stir, but, thankfully, he didn't wake up.

Meredith hadn't been sleeping well the last few weeks, and she didn't know why. At first she thought is was the park incident, then she thought it was her being nervous about Cynthia, then she thought she had missed someone's birthday, but now she was out of reasons why she just couldn't go to sleep at night. She tried everything from reading a book, to making tea, to listening to calming music, but nothing was working for her. There was no reason that she should be having more trouble sleeping than her baby, her about two month old baby.

But she usually did end up with her two month old baby. She usually ended up in the nursery in the rocking chair, just watching her child, she couldn't tell if it was creepy or normal. She just never got to see her, so these times at night were the few she got to see her until Meredith's schedule got somewhat less hectic, which Meredith was starting to think was never.

After the nail in head guy, which was awesome, and the bike race in which she was accosted by a biker, and the giant tumor lady that Alex offended, Meredith had no idea what was next. All she knew was she was itching to get into another brain.

Oh great, she was starting to sound like her husband.

She smiled as she rocked, there had been some much crazy stuff happening at the hospital, she was itching to go find out what was next. She was an addict, an addict that couldn't sleep at night.

She leaned back, she remembered that this had happened last, the lack of sleep that is, and that had been when...

Meredith shot up. Someone around her was in trouble, but who?

"This guy belongs in Psych, what are you doing turfing him here?" Meredith asked looking at a scan.

"He's my gift to you. Had a seizure two days ago and another one this morning," The psyche guy said.

"What are you talking about? It says right here, 'He talks to dead people, his family thinks he's dangerous. They had him committed'. That's Psyche, not Neuro," Meredith said gesturing to the chart. "Man, didn't you go to med school?"

"Yes, and unlike the correspondence school you attended-"

"Oh, are you talking about Columbia?"

"I learned not to jump to conclusions," He finished. "Sorry, lady, we can't take him back until he's cleared."

"So, you're dumping him on me?" Meredith asked looking back before turning back around. "He thinks his seizures are visions."

"Hello! They're not seizures. I'm psychic." Meredith looked over her shoulder at the patient then looked back at the psyche doctor.

"He sure sounds like a psyche patient," Meredith said.

"Just treat him."

Meredith sighed and turned towards the patient after the psyche guy left. "Ok, Mr. Duff. We're gonna start our workup now."

"Work me up, work me down, I'm telling you it's a waste of time," he said.

"Ok, well, humor me," Meredith said and grabbed his hand. "Can you grip my fingers, please?"

Meredith watched him go into some sort of...trance. "Mr. Duff?" She asked snapping her fingers in his face. "Mr. Duff, are you ok?"

"Someone..."

"Someone what?" Meredith asked.

"Someone's gonna check out. Bye-bye."

"Oh, man, you're nuts," Meredith mumbled.

"I'm dizzy, not deaf, lady. I'm telling you, someone on the fourth floor is gonna die."

"Code blue, fourth floor. Code blue, fourth floor," Meredith heard over the PA and she watched the code team run by. Meredith turned back to look at him with wide eyes.

"I need someone to cover me on the 16th, you in?" Christina asked George as he very obviously stared as Meredith and Derek walked by. "That's brave, staring at Meredith while her attending brother is standing with her."

"I'm thinking about letting my hair grow. Maybe I won't shave, go for the stubble effect. What do you think?"

"I think you should give up, shes very obviously not interested. Now, the 16th, George. Can you cover me or not?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Why?" He asked

"It's none of your business," Christina said said walking away.

"Thank you would be nice!" He called after her before sighing and going back to his chart.

"No, Derek," Meredith said again as she walked and he followed.

"Come on, it's one night," He said.

"One night? We have a child, Derek, a child we don't get to see all that often because we work all the time," Meredith said still walking. "We don't have time for date night."

"Then we can just make time," Derek said.

"Really, just make time? So, I should tell Bailey that I want time off because my husband is attention starved?" Meredith said with her eye brow raised.

"Oh come on, just a few hours, we can go to a nice restaurant and have a nice meal, and then we could go home and put our baby to sleep."

Meredith stopped walking and looked at her husband. "Derek, I just don't know..."

"Or," Derek said and wrapped an arm around her waist. "I could grill and we could break out a bottle of wine and have a romantic dinner."

"So now you are trying to seduce me with a steak and trailer," Meredith asked smiling up at him.

"Is it working?" He asked.

"Not even a little" Meredith smiled and started walking. "But I'll think about your proposal, Dr. Shepherd."

"Ok, Mr. Walker. Does that hurt?" Derek asked as he examined the patient.

"I can't feel anything until you get to my thigh," the patient, Mr. Walker said.

"Try wiggling your toes," Derek instructed and waited to see movement, but didn't see any.

"Are they moving?" He asked hopefully.

"No," Derek said and started marking in his chart.

"Damn," he said leaning back. "I could about ten minutes ago."

"Well, your spine x-rays look clear. You fell rock climbing?"

"In Snohomish. Just a small drop. I was delayed. My wife and boys are on the way. What's wrong with me, anyway?" He asked.

"Hold your legs up," he instructed. Derek lifted his legs and then released them and watched them drop back down in the bed.

"Should I be scared now?" The man asked.

"Just try and relax," Derek said and turned to a nurse. "Nurse, I need a stat MRI. Send an intern with him. Make it Meredith Shepherd."

"Mm-hmm."

"Hello, I'm Dr. Yang, I'll be updating you as Dr. Shepherd was just pulled into emergency surgery," Christina said as she entered Mr. Duff's room.

"A little Botox would do wonders on those frown lines," he commented.

"Okay, shut up," Christna said and pulled out some papers. "See here? These are spikes in your temporal lobe. It means you have epilepsy, not visions. Seizures."

"You think I'm epileptic? That is not right."

"I'm gonna order an MRI so we can take a closer look at your brain," Christina said writing down in his chart.

"Yeah, there's no way..." he started but trailed off as he went into some sort of trance.

"Mr. Duff? Mr. Duff, can you see me? Can you hear me?" Christina asked as she moved to stand next to him.

"I wouldn't have picked you for the mommy track, Nurse Betty," he said and Christina gaped at him. "See? I told you I know things. You know, though, this pregnancy thing, you can't run away from it."

Christina stiffened at the mention of her very unwanted and very inconvenient pregnancy. She had been very careful to make sure that it stayed very close to her chest until she delt with the little problem. She did not need this finding its way back to Burke.

"You need to shut up, now!" Christina said defensively as she left the room quickly.

"See this, the guy's films are clear. There's no reason that I can see for his creeping paralysis. I mean, I expected an intrusion into the spinal space or bony spur in the nucleus pulposus, but there isn't. There's nothing," Meredith said as she and Derek looked at the scan.

"There must be another reason, people just don't go paralyzed for no good reason..." Derek said and trailed off before sighing. "Let's just go talk the patient again."

"Any changes, Mr. Walker?" Derek asked as he and Meredith walked in.

"I can't move my legs at all now," he said, obviously distressed.

"He said he was moving his legs when he came in," his wife said paniced. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. The paralysis is moving very quickly and there was nothing in the MRI to explain it."

"Has Tommy been under any stress lately?" Meredith asked, looking up from the chart.

"You know what's making me stressed? Is being in here and not being able to move!" He said to her.

"Dr. Shepherd," Derek said tensely.

"Emotional trauma can be converted into something physical, like hysterical numbness or paralysis. Maybe there is no physiological reason, and he's just having a conversion reaction," Meredith said calmly as she was just as concerned as everyone else.

"You think it's psychosomatic?" Derek asked looking at her and she shrugged when the curtain behind them flew open.

"It is not in your head, man. I believe you," the psyche patient from earlier said.

"Mr. Duff, please," Meredith heard Izzie say as Duff's Boody was quickly yanked away and the curtain quickly shut.

"Who was that?" Derek asked turning to look at her.

"Psyche sent him down, he has visions," Meredith said before looking her head out of the curtain to look at Izzie. "Please keep your psyche patient away from my perfectly sane patients. Thank you."

"Is that it? Am I crazy?" Mr. Walker asked.

"No, no. I'm gonna order a higher-level MRI. We're gonna figure this out," Derek said.

All the interns were sitting around a desk and Christina took a whif of her sandwich and immediately dropped it.

"If that's turkey, can I have some?" George asked looking at the sandwitch.

"It's soggy," Christina said, slightly disgusted.

"If it'll kill you, it'll solve everything."

"I coulda gotten that intubation. I am good at intubations," George muttered.

Meredith tried taking a bite if the sandwich but just ended up spitting it out. "Why does everything in a hospital smell like a hospital?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, George, everybody makes mistakes," Izzie said.

"You know, I'm good at a lot of things."

"You know what, I'm gonna tell you something. Hey, George, you need to get laid. See that nurse over there?" Christina asked pointing towards the nurse. "She's single and she's got red hair. Go ask her out."

"I'm a redhead, does that mean you are gonna start sending people my way?" Meredith asked jokingly.

"Are you single?" Christaina asked.

"Um, no," Meredith said and it looked like Christina almost choked on her water.

"You aren't?"

"In case you forgot, I intubated an esophagus," George said, cutting off their conversation.

"Dude, you're tweaking. Maybe you should go see that psychic," Alex said.

"Mr. Duff is not a psychic!" Izzie shouted.

"I concur with that statement," Meredith said.

"I am trying to help you," Christina said, still staring at Meredith. "Go buy her a latte and freshen up your gonads, please."

"First my legs, then my stomach. God. Doc! Doc, my hands can't move!"

"Squeeze my fingers," Derek instructed.

"I can't," he ground out.

"Right here? No? Let me know if you feel this," Derek poked him with a neddle. "How about that? Here? Anything here? Up here? Ok. Nothing on this side? All right. I'll be right back." Derek walked towards the nurse. "Nurse, cancel the second MRI. Call down and prep an OR stat."

"You're operating? On what? If there was something to fix, wouldn't we have seen it?" Meredith asked looking at her husband incredulously.

"I think the MRI missed a clot somewhere in his upper spine. I'm gonna cut him open."

"And if you're wrong? Couldn't unnecessary spinal surgery do more damage?" She asked setting her hand on her hip.

"If we wait any longer and this expands into his brain stem, we have a paralyzed man who can't breathe. I'm trusting my instincts. Sometimes you've got to take a chance to save a life."

Meredith bit her lip before putting the chart away and following her husband.

"We've got to save this cord, this guy's built like the Rock of Gibraltar."

"You want me to start?" Meredith asked.

"No, I'm gonna to cut here from the base of the neck to the rib cage. I want you to hit the bleeders." He said.

"Got it," Meredith said getting ready.

Derek started cutting and Meredith did as he instructed and they worked in slience for a few minutes until her husband decided that he wasn't a fan of the silence.

"You know, that date is still on the table," Derek said glancing up at her.

"Derek, I don't think now is the time to talk about our dating life, Derek, and I'm sure everyone in this room would agree," Meredith said.

"I need to see more here, retractor. I don't see why we can't, or do you just want to evade the topic?"

Meredith huffed before dealing with the retractor. "How about option three, which says I just don't feel like talking about it right now."

"Why? There are only the scrub nurses and OR nurses around, my scrub nurses, no one is in the gallery, I don't see why you wouldn't want to talk about it now."

"Because I don't think we should talk about our person life while we are operating, Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said giving him a pointed look.

"I'm just trying to make conversation, Dr. Shepherd."

"Third thoracic laminae, nothing," Meredith sighed.

"Trying to go off topic again?"

"Pressure's up to 180/111. The pulse is in the 40s," the anesthesiologist said standing.

"Oh god," Meredith said as she stared at a guys spinal cord.

"I'm pushing 70 milligrams Diazoxide."

"Is it autonomic dysreflexia?" Meredith asked as Derek started moving quickly.

"And what is autonomic dysreflexia?" Derek asked almost absentmindedly.

"Damage to the sympathetic nervous system," Meredith said.

"Correct. His BP and the heart rate are unstable," He said. "We've got to find the clot."

"I'm looking, but I can't see shit!" Meredith said.

"Focus, Shepherd, we're gonna find the clot. It's there. Cleanup, please."

"Was that for you or me?" She asked quickly glancing at him before focusing again.

"Eh, it can apply to both of us," He said.

"BP's still up, heart rate's at 44," The anesthesiologist said.

"Get on those bleeders and keep looking," Derek said.

After what seemed like hours of searching, Meredith might have stumbled upon it and she stopped.

"What is it?" Derek asked, looking up.

"I-I think I found it," she stumbled out and pointed. "The second thoracic vertebrae." She saw Derek move out of the corner of her eye and look at where she was pointing and she could tell he was smiling through his mask.

"You found it," He said smiling up at her.

"Huh," Meredith breathed out still staring.

"Let's suction and pack this baby, shall we?"

"We shall," Meredith said smiling up.

After dealing with the clot, Meredith walked into the scrub room with a sigh where Derek had already started washing up.

"Is he gonna be ok?" Meredith asked after a pause as she started to scrub.

"I think so. I know we stopped the paralysis from advancing."

"But, we won't know if the paralysis he already has will be permanent until he wakes up."

"No," he said sighing.

"How did you know, to do surgery that is? The only symptom was creeping paralysis, but his scans were clean? How did know?"

"Instinct and wisdom," He said smiling down at her. Meredith shook her head and smiled as she watched her husband walk out laughing at her.

"I almost argued with Dr. Shepherd today because I thought he was insane for blindly cutting a man open."

"Basically, you tried to kill the guy," Alex joked.

"Basically, you're an ass," Meredith retorted.

"Come on, you know you want it. Come to papi, baby."

"I'm good." Meredith looked over and noticed that George had walked over.

"This, uh, is George." George said pointing to his name. "George has a hot date."

"Oh, that's great, George," Izzie said.

"Yeah," George said smiling as he sat down.

"Left pocket of my lab coat, Georgie," Alex said smiling. "No glove, no love."

"My psychic had his surgery," Izzie said thankfully changing the subject.

"Yeah?"

"I wonder what happened with his...gift," Izzie wondered.

"Come on, we all know he's crazy," Christina said.

"Thought you said you didn't believe in that stuff," Meredith asked Izzie.

"I grew up in a trailer park. I waited tables, which was supposed to put me through college, but my mother was always calling these psychics all the time. The bills started piling up, so I had to use my money to pay them. When I turned 18, I left and never went back, but this guy has been saying things to me, things he couldn't possibly know anything about. So I just wonder."

"Do you have sensation anywhere else?" Meredith asked as she examined him.

Some feeling in my stomach and feet, I guess."

"Bladder and bowels?" She asked.

"Not so good still," he said. "He said the pressure stockings help relieve clots and bedsores?"

"They do," Meredith said as she wrote in his chart.

"I wanted to thank you for everything. Believing in me, that I wasn't making it up."

"Well, I'll come back tomorrow, then," Meredith said smiling.

"Hey, I wanted to show you something. I wasn't sure it would last but now look. I know it's hardly anything, but..." He trailed off as he moved his finger.

"No, it's something. It's something really big," Meredith said smiling.

"I can't wait to go home, fall asleep, and never wake up," Izzie groaned as she and the other interns walked out of the elevator.

"I can't wait to go home and get so drunk, I can't remember today," Meredith said.

"Wanna go to Joe's?" Christina asked. Meredith couldn't tell if it was aimed at her because Christina had been looking right her or if was aimed at everyone.

"I'm down," Izzie said, looking at her phone.

"Me too," Alex said.

"Uh, sorry, I've got that date, but I'll catch you another time," George said and broke off to go meet the nurse that he was taking on a date presumably.

"I guess I can," Meredith said.

"Perfect," Christina said slinging her arm around her shoulders. "Let's go get a drink."

Meredith, Alex, Izzie, and Christina all made their way across the street into Joe's. They got into the bar and found that it was fairly crowded, not that that was unusual for the bar as most of the hospital staff's shifts were coming to an end and were coming to the bar to unwind a bit, not unlike the four interns.

"Hey Joe," Christina said as she and Meredith sat down at the bar.

"Hey, Christina, what can I get you ladies tonight?" Joe asked as he wiped out a glass.

"Uh, I'll have a tequila shot," Meredith said. Tequila was her favorite after all.

"I'll have one too," Christina said.

Joe put two tequila shots in front of them and they both downed them, Meredith was starting to get slightly annoyed with Christina's prying gaze, which had been focused on her all night. Finally, it became too annoying.

"What?" Meredith asked after she downed her second shot and turned to look at Christina.

Christina seemed to ponder something before turning to face forward. "Nothing."

"Oh Bullshit," Meredith said. "You've been staring at my like I was some kind of foriegn specimen all day."

"Well, sorry, I'm just trying to figure out why my best friend didn't tell me she was seeing someone," Christina said, still not looking at Meredith.

Meredith halfway slapped her hand down onto the bar and made sure Christina got a good look at it and everything on it. "You never asked."

Christina's eyes had gone wide as she looked at her hand. Meredith thought it was safe to assume that this is not what Christina had been expecting Meredith to do. Talk about her boyfriend, yes, draw attention to her wedding rings, nope.

"Y-you're married!" Christina exclaimed. Thankfully, they were in a bar and it was way too loud and everyone was way too drunk for Christina to make anyone look twice.

"I am and if you would kindly not shout it to the rest of the world, I would really appreciate it," Meredith said turning to down a fourth shot.

"Wait, is Shepherd like your maiden name?" That was the point Meredith almost slapped Christina.

"No, it's my married name, Christina," Meredith said, willing Christina not to yell that one.

"You're married to Derek Shepherd!" Christina quietly exclaimed. "He's, like, forty."

"Out of everything, that's what you pick up on?" Meredith deadpaned. But Meredith knew, out of everyone, Christina would.

"Well, you're like twenty-six, and he's, like, old." Meredith rolled her eyes.

"One, he's 35, he's not that old, two, when I met him, he was not in his thirties."

"Still-wait, if he wasn't in his thirties when you met him the oldest he could have been was twenty-nine, meaning you couldn't have been older than," Christina moved her hands into her massive curled hair and looked like she was calculating something. "Twenty-one, the oldest you could have been was twenty one."

"I had just turned eighteen when I meet him," Meredith said but was promptly cut off by Christina.

"Eighteen!" Christina shouted.

"Yes, eighteen, and I was nineteen almost twenty when I got married. Please don't yell that one," Meredith begged.

"You were nineteen when you got married?" Christina asked.

"Yes, I was." Meredith had decided that bringing up Cynthia might have not been the best thing right now.

Christina sighed as she put her head on the bar, still looking at Meredith though.

"Nineteen...you had you life together enough to get married at nineteen..."

"Um, Christina?" Meredith asked as she put her hand on Christina's back.

"...I'm twenty-seven and my life is falling apart," She said distantly, catching Meredith off guard.

"Christina, what's wrong?" Meredith asked, concerned.

"Meredith...I'm pregnant..." Meredith felt like she had been slapped across the face and blinked once, staring at an emotionless Christina who was still lying on the bar.

"Okay...what do you want to do? Are we trying to figure out how to work your work schedule around it, or are we exercising our right to chose?" Meredith asked cautiously.

"I'm exercising my right to chose..."

"Okay, have you made an appointment or?" Meredith asked, fully prepared to call Addison.

"Yes..." Christina said trailing off, but started talking again. "I put you down as my emergency contact, you know, to be there for me and and help me home, and stuff like that... I hope you don't mind..."

Meredith pulled Christina up and into her arms and rubbed Christina's back. Despite all her questions, she knew Christina wasn't up for answering them based on how tight she was holding onto Meredith, like she was her lifeline.

"I don't mind, I'll be your person."

 **A/N** **And here we go.** **Christina and Meredith each reveal their secrets.**

 **Questions.**

 **Patsy-One, you are correct, I do not have kids, and two, sometimes, when I talk about ages especially** **in babies, I round a lot. Cynthia is technically 6 weeks and 2 days old, as she was born then Meredith was asleep for six days then asleep again for about 3 days, then there was a week recovery in the hospital (for Meredith), and then a month between that and the start of her internship. So, long story short, a month was an easier number for my dumb brain.**


	7. In Which Joe Learns All

Meredith wasn't a weak person. She often referred to as the strong one, the one that proudly wore the heavy crown, the one with the broadest shoulders. She had to be the strong one, no normal person would be able to handle the trauma she's been through, and be safe enough to practice medicine. Living with Ellis Grey, having her father walk out on them, being completely alienated and ignored in school, being neglected by everyone that was supposed to love her, her awful nanny that was prone to emotionally abusing her, were only a few examples of the shit she went through until the day she moved out and never looked back.

She was the strong one. The one with the broad shoulders. The robot. She was the one everyone came to, because she was the one who could handle it.

So there she sat at the bar with Christina still in her arms. Although, even if she didn't want to be in a bar with Christina hugging her, she didn't know if she could get out with how hard Christina was holding onto her, like she was a buoy in the storm. Although, in all reality, this probably was Christina's storm.

She sighed as she continued to rub circles in Christina's back, and she looked over and saw a fairly uncomfortable Joe who was staring at the the pair like he couldn't tell what to do she shifted her line of sight over to where Alex and Izzie were, and the duo looked like they were getting along. Not that Meredith was complaining, Alex needed as many friends as possible because in this world, very few people would stick around to see the good guy beneath the jackass.

"Okay, okay," Meredith's attention was brought back to Christina as she pushed away from Meredith. "I'm okay, I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" Meredith asked concerned.

"Yep," Christina said and seemed to fall back into her normal persona.

"Okay, good," Meredith said as Alex stumbled over to them, very obviously drunk.

"What are you two doing?" Alex asked as he slung his arm over her shoulders startling her. "Are you even tipsy?"

"No, it takes a lot more than two tequila shots to get me drunk. I hold my liquor well," Meredith said. No wonder Alex and Izzie were getting along, they were drunk off their asses.

"Impressive," Alex said, his drink sloshing around as he tried to guide it to his mouth.

"I know, very impressive, now please tell me someone took your keys."

"Yeah, but jokes on them, I can walk," Alex slurred as he leaned on Meredith. So Alex is a huger when he's drunk. Noted.

"Or you could call a taxi, Alex. You don't have to walk," Meredith said slowly.

"Ah, where's the fun in that?"

"You are so drunk," she said and looked over at Christina. "Wanna help?"

"He is all yours, Sunshine," Christina said smirking making Meredith roll her eyes.

"Okay, drunk Alex. Perfect," Meredith mumbled and then looked around looking for their fourth party member. "Where's Izzie? Alex where is Izzie?"

"She said something about a boyfriend, but I think she's crazy," Alex slurred, still leaning on her. "You know, you two are my best friends, what would I do without you guys?"

"You'd be on the side of the road, dead. That's where you would be." Meredith looked around for Izzie praying she hadn't actually left, but the rapid movement that was Joe collapsing on the floor caught her attention.

"Shit," Meredith said as she moved quickly towards Joe with Christina not far behind, much to Alex's protest at the loss of his 'best friends'. She pulled her phone out as she checked his pulse.

"Yes, this is Dr. Meredith Shepherd, and I'm at Joe's Bar where the owner has collapsed."

Meredith got out of the ambulance to help the paramedics get Joe out of the back. Her heels, though, were making it very difficult.

"I'm fine, Meredith," Joe said as he tried to sit up only to be pushed back down by Meredith who gave him a glare for good measure.

"No, Joe. You collapsed, you are very not fine," Meredith said.

"But-"

"Zip," Meredith cut him off and made a zipping motion over her mouth and turned forward again to see her husband running out to meet them. "There you are, I was beginning to think there were no doctors. Either that or they were moving at a speed comprable to molasses."

"I was caught off guard by the fact that Meredith Shepherd and ambulance were in the same sentence, but it wasn't you on the gurney," Derek said throwing her a smirk and a trauma gown as he moved to the side of the gurney opposite her.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious, Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said putting on the trauma gown.

"Wait," Joe said. "Both of you are Dr. Shepherd?"

Meredith and Derek shot each other a look before looking forward again. "Long story," Meredith said simply.

"Uh, not really, are you married, related, or is it a coincidence?" Joe asked looking between the two.

"We're married," Derek said as the pushed the gurney with the help of Meredith and two nurses. "Now I want CT, MRI, and someone needs to start an IV. If he's dehydrated he'll need fluids. You aren't presenting any signs of a concussion, so that's good."

"That's a lot of stuff...how much is that going to be," Joe asked concerned looking between the two.

"You don't worry about that, Joe, you just let us take care of you," Meredith said giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile before turning back to her husband. "I'll get the results to you, Dr. Shepherd."

"Basilar artery's blown up like a balloon, subarachnoid bleeding, and an aneurysm the size of a golf ball," Derek said looking over the scans and the chart before handing them back to Meredith.

"There's no way to clip something like that, unless you have magic fingers," Meredith said looking at his scans again.

"Either that or a standstill."

Meredith looked up at her husband in shock. "You're going to do a standstill?"

"I'd like to try, but first I need some more patient history, overnight labs, and a cerebral angio," Derek said.

"Oh, that's hot," Meredith said after a moment of shock and Derek smirked leaned down to kiss her to which she responded enthusiastically.

"Oh god, I need to go home," Meredith said pulling away breathless and with slightly swollen lips.

"Why?" Derek asked as he continued to kiss down her neck as his hands roamed her body.

"Because I sent Christina and Alex in a cab to the house because Alex was so drunk, he couldn't drink anymore and right now I don't want Christina alone." Meredith smiled sheepishly as Derek shot up to look at her with shock on his face.

"Yeah...we should probably go."

"Genevieve!" Meredith called as she stepped into the house with Derek not far behind. Meredith looked around nervously when she saw the sixty-year-old walk down the stairs with a smile on her face.

"I wasn't aware that I would have more charges tonight," Genevieve said as she stepped down the last step.

Meredith sighed with relief. "Please tell me that they didn't cause you too many problems."

"No," she laughed. "Adults are just like children, they are fascinated by anything new."

Meredith went upstairs while Derek payed Genevieve. She pushed open the door to see Alex Karev passed out on the floor and Christina Yang leaning against Cynthia's crib. Meredith smiled as she stepped over Alex and moved to stand next to Christina and looked down at Cynthia who smiled and grabbed at Meredith. Meredith smiled and picked up her child and Christina moved to look at her.

"You have a kid," Christina said wearing a small smile on her face watching Meredith entertain Cynthia.

"Yeah, a kid named Cynthia who's been kept up past her bed time by Auntie Christina, now how rude is that, Cyn?" Meredith cooed and Christina smiled as Cynthia gurgled and shoved a piece of hair into her mouth along with the rest of her fist.

"Auntie Christina? Really?" Christina asked, the smile not leaving her face.

"If I'm going to be your person, then you have to be mine, Auntie Chrissy," Meredith said grinning up.

"Whatever, Sunshine," Christina said and kicked Alex who groaned and rolled over to look up at the two of them.

"You never said anything about a kid, Princess," Alex slurred out pointing up at Meredith.

"You never asked, Uncle Alex," Meredith joked as she swayed and bounced Cythia under Christina's calculating gaze.

"Yes?" Meredith asked Christina.

"It's just that I should have seen this coming. You, McDreamy, and your perfect child," Christina said.

"McDreamy? Really?" Meredith asked and Christina just shrugged in response. "God, I hate you two"

Meredith walked into the hospital at three o'clock in the morning with a still tipsy Alex and Christina in tow. Her heels clicked on the marble floors as she walked through the hospital to find Christina a place to nap, Alex a banana bag, and figure out who made off with Joe's labs.

"Slow down, Princess, we all aren't as talented as you in high heels," Alex said as he stumbled behind her and Christina.

"One, if you call me Princess ever again, I'm going to hit you, two you aren't wearing high heels," Meredith said and Alex looked down at his feet with a baffled look on his face.

"Huh..."

Meredith sighed as she walked into a room and grabbed a bag and an IV needle, and went to the nearest on call room. She ordered Christina to get up top and sleep until Meredith came back and chucked a bottle of sleeping pills at her and she stuck the IV in Alex's arm and made him lay down on the bottom bed and turned out the lights as she walked out to go get Joe's labs.

Meredith sat outside Joe's room waiting on her husband to come take a look at the labs and speak to Joe. Meredith sighed as she adjusted her scrubs and tried to keep her eyes open. She hasn't slept in a day, not that she hadn't got more than two hours the week before, but now it was all starting to hit her. She was exhausted.

She yawned and then looked to see her husband and Dr. Burke walking down the hallway. She hopped up from the stool she borrowed and handed Derek the labs.

"Good Morning, Dr. Burke and Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said thinking if she was more agonizingly cheery, her body would be less tired. It wasn't working and she was getting weird looks from Burke and Derek.

"That's what I thought," Derek said after shooting her a weird look. "I think it's time we go talk to Joe."

"I agree," Burke said and followed Dr. Shepherd in and Meredith brought up the rear, yawning before going into the room and shutting the door.

"It's the location of the aneurysm that makes it tricky," Derek said and Meredith grabbed the chart to start writing stuff down.

"Your body temperature would be lowered cool enough to protect it from any damage and stop the heart," Burke explained from the other side of Joe's bed.

"Which stops blood flow to the brain and reduces the risk of rupture. Meaning I'll have 45 minutes to clip the aneurysm, before Dr. Burke steps in and gets the heart started again," Derek said and Meredith felt her eyes getting heavier

"You wanna freeze my body, drain my blood, and stop my heart?"

"And bring you back," Derek added.

"In under 45 minutes?" Joe asked looking between the two.

"Right," Burke said.

"If you go over, is it free?"

Meredith snorted and got a look from Derek before he turned around.

"No. Dr. Shepherd, you can go do the pre-op labs now," Derek said and Meredith nodded.

"Ok," Meredith said and grabbed the chart and walked out, been when she stopped to write something down real quick, she heard what came next.

"How much does something like this cost?" Joe asked.

"I don't think you should worry about that right now," Meredith heard through the door.

"Hey, look, you guys say that you can kill me and bring me back, I believe you. You're doctors, but I own a bar. I don't got any insurance so I'm not that concerned about the surgery so mush as what I'm gonna do when I survive it. I need a number. Ten grand? Twenty? Thirty?"

"It's a couple hundred at least," she heard her husband say.

"At least," Burke confirmed.

How was a man with no insurance supposed to pay for a standstill? Meredith would have to talk to Richard.

Alex had been wandering around the hospital as he was still very hung over and he couldn't find Meredith to get this stupid IV out and Christina had been dead asleep courtesy of sleeping pills.

He had been walking the halls in his hungover state for a solid hour when he came across Joe's room and remembered Meredith talking about his case. Might as well say hi.

"They told me you were in a nightgown, but I thought I'd come and see it for myself. Very nice, huh," Alex said smirking as he sat down next to Joe's bed.

"Very funny, Karev. At least I wasn't so slammed last night I didn't know which way was up," Joe retorted and Alex rolled his eyes as a nurse walked in with a very large basket.

"Whoa, who sent that?" Joe asked gesturing to the basket.

"We all pitched in. The whole floor," the nurse said smiling.

"Well, please, tell the whole floor a big thank you," Joe told her and the nurse nodded.

"Yeah, I will," she said smiling and walked out.

"Alex, you gotta get me out of here, man. Get me transferred to County Hospital, or something," Joe said.

"Oh, you don't want to go to County. Here, they can kill you and bring you back, but at County, they just know how to kill you. No joke," Alex said looking in the basket.

"I can't afford this place, man. I'm gonna lose the bar," Joe said and Alex started picking through the basket. "Okay, that's mine."

"Well first start things first, we're gonna start by saving your life, man," Alex said, eating something.

"The bar is my life, you know that. You've been at last call with me, practically every night since you moved here. I'm gonna have to shut it down or sell it," he said putting his head in his hands.

"You can't do that, the place is an institution," Alex said, eating something else.

"You know, I've owned the bar across the street for 14 years, and I've never been inside this hospital till now."

"That's probably you're first problem-"

"Alex!"

"Yeah, sorry. Look I'll pay my tab. That's gotta be good for something. How much is it?"

"Close to a grand," Joe deadpanned.

"How about I pay, like, 60? That's good, and I'll pay you back later," Alex said and Meredith sighed from outside the door. Alex's 60 dollars was not going to do a thing, despite what he thinks in his head. Meredith looked down the hall and saw just the person she needed and smiled.

"George!" Meredith called and ran to catch up to the man as she watched him whip around at the sound of his name.

"George, I need you to do something for me, and this is very important," Meredith and watched George nod his head.

"Anything. I mean, I'll do anything I can to help. What am I helping with?"

"I need you to find a way to get Joe a standstill surgery for free," Meredith said and smiled sheepishly at George.

"W-what?" George asked flabbergasted, but Meredith didn't stick around to answer any questions.

"Thanks George!" She said walking down the hall.

"Wait! Meredith wait!"

"Heya, sunshine," Joe said as he watched Christina bolt in and immediately go to the bathroom and puke her guts out. "Morning sickness must suck."

"Just so we're clear, do not breathe a word of what you heard last night to anyone. Not about me, not about Meredith, not about Meredith her marriage to Dr. McDreamy."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Christina? You're supposed to be sleeping," Meredith said as she walked in with Joe's chart and put it on the table before turning to look at her friend who was looking ill and standing in the bathroom doorway. "Morning sickness?"

"Oh, shut up," Christina said and Meredith sighed and turned back to the doorway when Dr. Burke walked in. Although, she didn't miss the look on Christina's face when he walked in.

"Hey, Dr. Burke," Joe said smiling.

"Joe," Burke greeted before turning to Meredith.

"Vital signs stable overnight. Today's CT shows no re-bleeding," Meredith's presentation was cut off by a yawn but she was able to get back to presenting. "The EKG shows um, normal sinus rhythm. No ischemia or dysrhythmias."

"Shepherd, are you okay?" Looking at the woman as she yawned again.

"No, no, I'm fine," she said.

"Okay...In that case, monitor him and page me if anything changes," he said and Meredith watched Burke look at her weird before leaving.

"I should be asleep?"

"Oh, hi chief. No, not much going on other than your cardio attending making out with my friend in the stairwell, and my crush asking me to ask you if you could get Joe a free procedure...a free hundred thousand dollar procedure," He said to himself as he paced outside the Cheif's office.

"Talking to yourself now?" Meredith asked as she walked up to George.

"Yes. No! damn it, I'm a bad sponge. A leaky sponge. I'm gonna leak all the wrong secrets. I'm a bad liar, I can't even lie about talking to myself. You look nice today," George spilled out and Meredith looked at him weird.

"I wore new lip gloss because my lips kept getting chapped and I'm allergic to almost all other kinds of chapstick...but thanks for noticing?" Meredith said questioningly And watched George drop his head into his hands.

"I-I'm sorry. That was a weird thing, and things just kept coming out, and I've seen a lot if weird things today and I just-"

"George," Meredith said cutting him off. "Calm down, it's fine."

"Why are you over here?" George asked her, trying to change the conversation.

"Well, when Richard never tracked me down to ask me why I'm sending minions to do my bidding and trying to get free very expensive surgeries, I assumed you hadn't told him and I should come myself. Now that I know you didn't flake out on me, why are you pacing out here?" Meredith asked

"Uh, well, can you think of any reason, any reason at all, really, why Cristina would be kissing Burke?"

"Sir?" George asked timidly as he walked into the Cheif's office on the instruction of Meredith.

"Ah, O'Malley, what can I do for you today?" Richard asked smiling up at George.

"Uh, well, I wanted to talk to you about the standstill patient, Joe," George said.

"Ah, yes, Joe, nice man. What about him?" The Cheif asked.

"Uh, well, Meredith wanted to know if there were any options for Joe...to help pay for the procedure..."

"We're operating on our patients, that's it," Richard said sitting back down. "I sympathize, I do, but solving Joe's finances is not my job, it's not your job, it's not Meredith's job, and it's sure as hell not the job either of you were assigned today."

"It just seems wrong to cut him open, sew him up, and just leave him, you know, left with nothing," George pleaded.

"If we can save his life, we'll hardly be leaving him with nothing," Richard said.

"That's as far as I can go for now, let's start cooling him," Derek said and Meredith watched as Joe was packed full with ice packs.

"Can't see much from back here, O'Malley," Dr. Bailey said in the gallery.

"I know. I'm just trying to find a loophole to help Joe. You know Joe." George said and sighed.

"Oh, yeah. I was the only female intern my year. I didn't know anybody and nobody knew me except Joe. He knew me," Dr. Bailey said and smiled.

"Oh. So, you and Joe?"

"All you people ever thing about is how to get into somebody's pants. You're nasty. That's why you got syphilis," Dr. Bailey said and smacked George in the head. "Joe was the first person here to tell me I'd make a good surgeon. Not that he knew anything about it. But it was something when I had nothing."

"That's it!" George exclaimed after he overheard Alex and Izzie talking, but only received weird looks from everyone as he ran out.

"We stop the blood flow?"

"To protect the brain. We operate in a bloodless field so the aneurysm won't rupture," Meredith said as she handed a tool to Derek.

"And cool the body?"

"To induce hypothermia. Keeps the tissue viable until the blood is restored," Meredith responded and grabbed something to hold it.

"Body temp is at 60 degrees," another doctor said.

"Ok, Joe, time to die," Burke said. He clamped the bloodline and Meredith watched someone turn off bypass and watched the heart monitor flatline.

"Flatline," the doctor said.

"All right, we've got 45 minutes, people," Derek said and they immediately got to work.

"Start the clock," Burke said and another doctor moved to start it.

45 minutes left.

"Damn it, I can't get the clamp to hold. Give me the bipolars, Shepherd, I'm gonna go in at a different angle," Derek said and Meredith handed them to him.

"Time remaining?" Burke asked.

"17 minutes," Meredith promptly responded.

"Shepherd, I'm gonna need eight minutes to get him back, to warm him up," Burke said.

"Time to make the next 17 minutes count. Right there, go in from there. See it? See, that's why we can't do it right there." Meredith nodded but felt the weight of the clock behind her, she could only imagine how Derek felt.

"He's dead, technically, which is science, and this is a huge thing. So I thought some research foundation has to have an interest in that," George told Richard.

"So, in essence, you want to donate Joe's body to science?" Richard asked.

"Yes, for educational purposes. We're a teaching hospital. The standstill surgery qualifies under the grant," George said.

"I didn't peg you for the type to ignore my instructions, O'Malley," Richard said, taking his glasses off.

"All due respect, sir, it's worth a shot. It's someone's life," George said and Ricahrd just shook his head.

"It's always someone's life, O'Malley," He said then looked back up. "You're hovering. You can leave now."

"Eight minutes."

"We need to start rewarming, Shepherd," Burke said.

"Take the bipolars, please," Derek said and Meredith grabbed them with her free hand. "Thank you."

"Shepherd, we need to start warming him up, now!" Burke said and started getting antsy.

"Hang on," Derek said and Meredith gulped.

"Now, I need it now, Shepherd."

"I can't seem to get...I just can't get behind the aneurysm. If I could get behind the aneurysm, I could, there it is. Got it. That's it," Derek said and stepped back.

"Are you sure?" Burke asked and Meredith rolled her eyes. He had just been rushing them and now was when he decided that he could take a few extra seconds?

"I'm always sure. Good work, everybody. It's all yours there, Burke," Derek said.

"Ok people, let's grab Joe before he decides to go into the light. Start warming him up. Clamps are coming off. Turn the pump on. Watch cerebral perfusion pressures. Keep M.A.P. at greater than 60, please."

"Get in here, O'Malley!" Richard shouted and George was quick to run into the office.

"Okay, I tried. I really tried, but there's a lot of stuff happening out there. Stuff I can't tell you. Stuff I won't tell you. Crazy stuff. Stuff I'm gonna have nightmares about. But I'm not gonna tell you about any of it. Because it doesn't matter. Not when there's a guy out there who we all know and love who's gonna be bankrupt because he needed a surgery to save his life. And I spent the whole day working on it, well, at the request of Meredith..."

"O'Malley," Richard said but was stopped.

"Let me finish...You're wrong, sir. Now you can fire me, or, you know, bring me up on disciplinary action or whatever. I'm telling you, Joe deserves-"

"Deserves our help," Richard finished. "Couldn't help yourself, could you? Whether or not it'd win you any points, even from me. I signed your request. Give it to Patricia, she'll know what to do with it. Looks like Joe may keep his bar after all."

"Thank you, sir," George said nodding, shocked that he had done it.

"O'Malley!" He called and George whipped back around. "Yell at me again, and I'll snap you like a twig."

"Yes, sir," George said with wide eyes and practically ran out of the room.

"Richard?" Meredith asked as she stuck her head in the chief's office.

"One, O'Malley got Joe a free surgery," Richard said and watched the smile grow on her face. "Two, I hear it was majorly attributed to your persistence. Next time, don't send minions to do your bidding."

"Yes, sir!" Meredith said and then did a little happy dance once she left the office.

"Having fun, Happy Feet?"

Meredith whipped around and a giant smile broke out on her face once she saw who had spoken.

"Addie! Mark!" She said then ran at the two of them and pulled them into a hug.

"Hey, sis, you're happy," Mark said and smiled at the redhead.

"Of course I am, today's been a great day, and you two just made it better. What are you doing here?" Meredith asked stepping back and putting her hands on her hips.

"Well, this is our new place of employment, so I don't know why we wouldn't be here," Addison said and smiled at Meredith.

"Wait, you are gonna work here!" Meredith said and Addison nodded enthusiastically.

"Oh my gosh, this is great!" Meredith said and pulled them both in for a hug again.

"Well, Mrs. Shepherd, I hate to say this, but Mrs. Sloan and I must go talk to your cheif about tomorrow, so I guess we'll see you then?"

"Yep, I'm in call," Meredith said giddy. "We'll have to get dinner together sometime."

"Of course, Little Miss," Mark said and hugged her. "But for now, farewell."

"Bye, sissy," Addison said and hugged her too.

"Bye, guys," Meredith said and walked back down the catwalk, her day even better. What she didn't see is that George had seen the whole thing.

Meredith yawned again as she sat in the lobby waiting for her husband to arrive, but unfortunately only saw Christina and Alex...coming right for her.

"Hey, uh, Mer," Christina said as she and Alex stood nervously in front of her.

"Um, what's up?" Meredith asked and yawned.

"Um, is there a reason the entire hospital is talking about how you and Dr. Shepherd are married?" Alex asked nervously. That woke Meredith up.

"What!"

"We were walking by a nurses station and we overheard them talking about how it was spread amongst the interns that you two were married. Apparently someone saw someone call you Mrs. Shepherd," Christina said.

Meredith leaned back in her chair, her jaw slack. Someone had eavesdropped on her, Mark, and Addison's conversation. Shit.

"Oh god..." Meredith said and dropped her head in her hands.

"Here comes McDreamy. Get up, Mer." Meredith allowed Christina to drag her to her feet and saw Derek speed walking towards her, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Why is everyone looking at me weird?" Derek asked as he approached his wife and her friends. Christina and Alex looked nervously between each other but Meredith just looked miserable standing in between them.

"They know we are married," Meredith said.

"Oh...how did they-"

"I was talking to Addison and Mark, who are here by the way, and Mark called me Mrs. Shepherd and someone heard."

"Mark and Addison are here?" Derek asked.

"Yeah, they got jobs here and didn't even call once," Meredith said.

"That's weird," Derek said.

"Um, who are Mark and Addison?" Christina asked looking between the two.

"Oh, they are friends of ours. They just moved here apparently," Meredith said and sighed. "We should go."

"Yeah, you're right," Derek said and pulled out the keys.

"Bye guys," Meredith said as she and Derek walked out of the hospital.

"We're totally screwed, aren't we?" Meredith asked once they got a fair distance away from the hospital.

"Oh, there's no way we aren't."


	8. In Which Addison Cries A Lot

Meredith walked into the hospital at a healthy four o'clock am to start her 24 hour shift. She yawned and almost rolled her ankle on her heel. She eventually made it to the intern locker room, but almost wished she had been hit by a bus on the way into work.

She stepped into the locker room and pulled her coat tighter around herself as she made her way to her locker. She felt the looks of her fellow interns on her back and tried to ignore them, but it was kind of difficult as everywhere she looked it seemed there was someone glaring at her. Looks like news traveled fast.

She opened her locker to put her bag in and grab a pair of scrubs, but when she swung the door open, she saw the 'whore' scrawled in black marker across the back of her locker. She growled as she shoved her bag in her locker.

"What are we in, high school?" Meredith asked everyone in the room before she left to change. Apon return, she saw more of her friends sitting around getting ready for the workday, which made her feel better. She had no idea how Izzie and George were going to react to her, so she just didn't say anything and kept her head down as she moved to put her clothes back in her locker. She noticed that Izzie was glaring at her and George couldn't stop looking at the ground.

"Meredith, how are you doing?" She heard Alex say but he trailed off. "Oh my God, who did that."

"Who did what?" Christina asked then looked in her locker. "Meredith, who did that?"

"I don't know who did, if I did I would be reporting it right now, not staring at it."

"You know you can go tell Webber," Alex said staring at the back of the locker in disbelief with Christina nodding her head in agreement.

"What, did she sleep with him too?" Meredith heard a female intern behind her ask with a sneer.

"No, that would be weird seeing as he's the closest I have to a father and he walked me down the aisle at my wedding, bitch," Meredith said whipping around to face the intern. "And if you don't what three attendings and the Cheif of Surgery making your life hell, I'd shut my mouth." Meredith was boiling. She hated using the 'half of my family is your boss' card, but there was no one, and she ment no one, on planet Earth that can call her a whore.

"Oh, I bet you could. Perfect Meredith isn't so perfect afterall, she just has others make her look good," another sneered.

"Do you think she even knows how to hold a scalpel?"

"I hear she's not even legally married, she just been sleeping with him to get surgeries."

Meredith growled and marched out, lightly shoving the intern that started all this on her way out and she was followed out by Alex and Christina.

"Hey, you should just shake it off. You'll get a whole day away from them and get to work on the human brain, your favorite thing to do," Christina said. "Just like I will be firmly distracting myself with cardio."

"I'm not on Dr. Shepherd's service today, so as much as I want to work on brains and spines today, I won't," Meredith said.

"What, why?" Alex asked.

"Because today is not the day I need to be on his service," Meredith said.

"Meredith, you are very stressed and very angry, neuro makes you happy because you love it and you are comfortable and confident in the OR when there's a neuro patient on the table. On a day when you aren't happy, you should do what makes you happy. Not only that, but I'm just an intern and I can tell it's your calling, you're just so natural at it," Christina said and slung her arm around Meredith.

Meredith sighed. "I know, I just don't want to give anyone gasoline to pour into the fire that is my career. So just drop it."

"Fine, but Mer, Bailey told us she was giving out assignments at the locker room," Alex said.

Meredith growled as she turned on her heel to go back to the locker room and get her assignment. Meredith, Christina, and Alex rounded the corner on their way to the locker room when she saw an argument unfolding in front of her that she wished she had never seen.

Miranda Bailey, Addison Sloan, and Mark Sloan where standing at the end of the hallway. Both Addison and Mark had the brilliant idea to go introduce themselves and request an intern for the day. They were both doing fairly complicated surgeries to really establish themselves and both wanted an intern that was competent and knew how to hold a scalpel. Sadly their idea of a competent intern turned out to be the same intern.

Miranda Bailey's day had been going fairly okay, that was until she met her new bosses, Drs. Mark and Addison Sloan.

First, she had met Addison.

"Doctor Bailey?" Addison called and Bailey had turned around to see who had called her when she saw a tall, attractive, redhead in heels walking her way.

"You must be Dr. Sloan," Bailey said.

"Yes, Dr. Addison Sloan," Addison said with a smile and started walking with Bailey. "I hear your interns are the best, Dr. Bailey, is that true?"

"I would sure hope so, Dr. Sloan, I trained them. Do you want one of them?" Bailey asked and looked down at the clipboard that had where her interns were going that day seeing if she could shift them around.

"Yes, I am as a matter of fact, but I would like to request a specific intern. Dr. Shepherd, I know she might be on Neuro today, but I was wanting to see if I could snake her out from under the other Dr. Shepherd's feet."

"Acually, Dr. Shepherd was with me today, but I would be glad to hand her over, but first, is there a reason for wanting specifically her?"

"Well, I have a woman coming in who's babies have twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, TTTS, and I need someone who's quick, smart, and knows the basics of the procedure, Dr. Shepherd meets all my criteria."

"Well, in that case-"

"Dr. Miranda Bailey?" Bailey turned around to see a male doctor dressed in navy scrubs and a giant smile plastered to his face walk towards her. That must be the other Dr. Sloan.

He walked up to her with a big smile on his face. Bailey could tell from there that he was charismatic, but probably thought the world revolved around him. "Dr. Mark Sloan," He said shaking her hand. "New plastics attending."

"She knows who you are Mark," Addison said, obviously very annoyed.

"I would just like to make it formal as I would like to be assigned an intern from this fine Doctor," Mark said, trying to keep his tone pleasant.

"You too?" Miranda asked looking at him with confusion.

"Well, I was informed that not only were your interns the best, but you are also in charge of the intern I would like to request."

And that's when the shouting started.

"Oh, no, no you are not allowed to take her!"

"What? Why not? Are you putting an embargo on **our** sister now?"

"I'm not putting an embargo on her, I just already claimed her for my transfusion case!"

"I have a facial reconstruction case today, and I could really use a competent intern since I'm literally RESHAPING SOMEONE'S FACE!"

"Babies, Mark, are you really going to deny two babies the best medical care possible because of your elective surgery?"

"Oh, well in that case, let me go tell my fifteen year old some nut job is going to be hacking at his face after the car crash he was in that shattered most of the bones in his face!"

"Hey!"

Everyone turned to face the sound of the noise and Miranda Bailey was prepared to get on her knees and thank the person who had stopped that very, very uncomfortable argument that Miranda was not in the mood to be caught in between. That's when she saw that both attendings were looking at the ground and shuffling like they were children just caught by their mother and Bailey looked out to see her tiny intern standing there with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed while a wide eyed Alex Karev stood behind her and a impressed looking Christina Yang looked on, and Bailey could tell that Alex was trying to get Meredith to walk away and Christina was telling him to let it happen.

Bailey raised her eyebrows and had a small smile on her face. Only her interns would make attendings act like small children.

"I have no idea what the hell that was, but I will be going with Addison," Meredith stopped Mark from speaking when he tried to interupt her and finished. "You will be getting Alex, who I assure you is very competent, has good hands, and learns fast. Now, I don't know what the hell that was but I expect an explanation before I step foot out of this building."

"Nothing is going on, sis-"

"You haven't called in a month, Mark hasn't called in two weeks, you moved across the country and I still got no phone call, and now I see you fighting in the hall over nothing. So, yes, something is wrong because I know the two of you. Now either fix it or get your story straight. Let's go cut something, Addison, before I cut one of you."

Miranda Bailey watched astounded as Meredith turned on her heel and walked away with a wide-eyed, slacked jawed Alex Karev and smirking Christina close behind, leaving her with two ashamed looking attendings. She raised that one well.

"Well, that made my job easier," Bailey said, walking away with a smirk on her face.

"Go, Mer, that was awesome. Those were attendings," Christina said.

"Two happily married attendings that shouldn't be having a shouting match in the middle of their place of work over me," Meredith said trying to think.

"Stress can do that to people," Alex said shrugging.

"Not these people," Meredith said and got the chart for Addison's patient. "I've gotta go meet Addison, but you go have fun with Mark and Cardio."

"I plan on it," Christina said stretching.

Meredith smiled walked away and to the room where Addison's patient was and did her best to ignore the whispering and the pointing. She went into the room where Addison was standing next to the patient. "Ah, Dr. Shepherd, you are right on time. How about we get started. Define TTTS, Shepherd."

"Twin-twin transfusion syndrome. Fetal twins conjoined by blood vessels in the placenta," Meredith said flashing a smile at the patient as she opened the chart to start writing.

"Meaning?"

"One twin gets too much blood, the other too little, endangering the lives of both," Meredith said and gave Addison a weird look. Addison knew that Meredith knew what TTTS was.

"Just making sure you remembered," Addison said before turning her attention to the patient.

"They told me there wasn't much chance anything could be done," the patient said nervously.

"TTTS is usually impossible to correct, unless you happen to be one of a handful of surgeons in the world who knows how to separate fetal blood vessels. Which, luckily for you, I am, so we're gonna get you into surgery tomorrow. If you have any questions at all please ask Dr. Shepherd, from what I have seen, she is one the hospital's most popular interns," Addison said smiling at Meredith who rolled her eyes before following Addison into the hall.

"Really? One of the hospital's most popular interns?"

"Chin up, Shepherd, I'm this tough on everyone, not just the women my husband sleeps with," Addison joked. "Order an ultrasound for her and pre-op labs in full."

"Of course," Meredith said and added once she got to the end of the hall. "Just because you're joking around does not mean I'll forget, Sloan!"

"O'Malley, you're with me."

George almost peed himself once he realized who had called him. Of course today was the day he had been put on Derek Shepherd's service. The day after he found out the woman he had a very, very large crush on was married to. The universe just loved rubbing stuff in his face.

"You can go ahead and start with the consult on this patient, call me in when you need me. I'm expecting greatness from you today, O'Malley."

Perfect.

"Ahh, and you noticed her foot twitching-come on, Jamie-three months ago?" George asked the parents of the consult, a little girl named Jamie.

"Just a little over. We took her to County Hospital and she got the CT scan, which showed her..."

"Brain abnormality," George finished for the mom. "And the twitching has gotten worse?"

"A lot worse. They just don't have the proper equipment back home to figure out what's wrong," the dad said.

"You did a...you did a good thing by coming all this way, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes. You sit tight Jamie, ok? I'm gonna bring in Dr. Shepherd to see you, ok." George stood up and grabbed her chart.

"Shepherd," Jamie garbled as she looked around.

"Ok? Dr. Shepherd, he's the brain specialist."

"Doctor? Is he good, this Dr. Shepherd?" The dad asked.

"At just about everything," George said looking down and leaving to find Dr. Shepherd.

Meredith walked back into Julie's room with an ultrasound on tow.

"Okay, Julie, I'm going to be checking a few things today," Meredith said as she sat down and got ready to go to work.

"What does it take to go after another woman's husband?"

Meredith furrowed her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"It happened to me. Jeff moved in with a long-legged miniskirt who answered his phones, three weeks into my pregnancy. By the way, that gel is really cold."

Meredith shook her head. "I'm sorry, and I'm sorry about your husband."

"Are you sorry about Dr. Montgomery-Sloan's husband?"

"Um, excuse me?" She hadn't done anything to Mark...

"I bet she asked to work with you. It's what I would have done," she continued.

"Okay, I'm gonna go check on your labs and see if Dr. Sloan put you on morphine." Meredith said standing up and walking out.

George had been waiting outside of an OR for about five minutes, waiting on Dr. Shepherd to come out so he could discuss Jamie with him.

"Dr. Shepherd..." George asked as Dr. Shepherd left the operating room.

"I got to get some coffee. Meredith didn't have time to throw on a pot," George heard Dr. Shepherd mumble, but he chose to ignore that.

"Jamie Hayes has been admitted, the little girl with the brain abnormality."

"How's she presenting?" Dr. Shepherd asked still walking.

"She has what looks like continuous seizure activity in her left foot and her balance is off. Her parents have come along way to find out what's wrong."

Derek grabbed the CT scans and looked at them. "How old are these?"

"Three months old," George responded.

"I need new ones. Her brain could look dramatically different today," Derek said handing the CT's back.

"Ok, I'll order them..." George said as Dr. Shepherd got on the elevator.

"Thank you," Derek said as the doors shut.

"...doc."

Meredith walked back into the TTTS lady room after checking the labs and hoped that she was no longer on whatever she had been on and sat down to get back to work.

"When I found out about the miniskirt, I called her up and took her to lunch. It was perfectly civil. I said I didn't hold it against her, that these things happened, but really I just wanted to put a face on the bitch that got my husband to throw away 15 years of marriage." Meredith's eyes went wide as she tried to focus on the ultrasound, that's when she saw something worthy of her wide eyes.

"I need Dr. Sloan," Meredith mumbled as she got up with the chart and ran out of the room in search of her longtime bed friend and found her talking Derek.

"Dr. Sloan?"

"Yes?" Addison asked turning around to face Meredith with a cup of coffee in her hands.

"Labs confirm what looks like abnormalities on the ultrasound. I think you should come and see for yourself," Meredith said point back to the TTTS lady.

"Fine, let's go have a look." Meredith handed Addison the chart but her husband stopped her.

"Here you look like hell," He said holding out a coffee which she accepted gratefully.

"Thank you. Although I do not look that bad."

Derek chuckled. "Really? Cause you look like you were just hit by a bus."

Meredith mock glared at her laughing husband as she ran to catch up with Addison. When she got back she saw that Addison about had the ultrasound up and running when Meredith took back over and showed Addison the abnormality.

"See, bilateral pleural effusion with evidence of subQ edema," Meredith said pointing to it and saw the warning signs that Addison was getting ticked off.

"In English, please?" Julie asked looking between them.

"We've detected what looks like beginning heart failure in the twins. Don't be alarmed," Addison said focusing on the ultrasound. Meredith looked up at Addison with raised eyebrows about the comment to not be scared about heart failure only to receive a slap in the head.

"Ow."

"Are my babies gonna be ok?" Julie asked looking between the two.

"I'm gonna go ahead and take you into surgery now. We're not gonna wait," Addison said and turned to Meredith. "Book the OR. Move."

"You look like a princess. Do you know you're a princess?" Derek asked as he checked over Jamie.

"It's not lipstick," Jamie said as she played with a flashlight Derek had let her grab a hold of.

"It's not lipstick? No, it's not lipstick," Derek said as Jamie shined the flashlight at him.

"And nose?" She babbled as she shined the flashlight around.

"We're gonna find out what's causing these seizures. Does MRI know we're coming down?" Derek asked George.

"You said CT?" George said as he looked confused.

"Now I'm saying MRI," Derek said, bouncing Jamie.

"It's available," George said, agitated.

"Good," Derek said and turned his attention back to Jamie's parents.

"Doctor, is she gonna need surgery?" Her father asked.

"I don't know yet," Derek sighed.

"It's just that my wife and I, we both work and I don't know if our insurance..."

"We know it can be very expensive," her mom finished.

"I don't want you to worry about that," Derek said then Jamie's leg started twitching faster.

"It's a focal, left-side seizure. Okay, let's get the diazepam running now, please," Derek said.

"Diazepam, IV," a nurse said handing it over.

"Tourniquet please," Derek said and once he got it he started speaking to Jamie. "Jaime, here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna put this on your arm, ok? Isn't that fun? Here, we're gonna put that right there, like that, and this is gonna feel cold. This is a butterfly, butterfly fly lands right there, good. Blanket for the butterfly. Good, nicely done." George watched as the nurse injected the diazepam and Jamie's leg stopped twitching.

"It's amazing stuff, isn't it?" Derek asked smiling at the parents and Jamie.

"Um-hmm," Jamie's dad agreed, nodded.

"Hey, you like spaceships?" Derek asked as he bounced her.

"Yeah!" She exclaimed.

"You do? Okay, should we take Captain O'Malley, my first lieutenant, to the spaceship MRI?" Derek asked smiling.

"Yeah!" She exclaimed again.

"Okay, George, let's move her."

Meredith and Addison walked into Julie's room after A very successful surgery and Meredith went to write in the chart and Addison moved to talk to Julie.

"How are we doing, Julie?" Addison asked as she moved to the side of her bed.

"Pretty good," she said and smiled up at Addison.

"See, I told you, just a small scar," Addison said returning the smile.

"And my babies?" She asked.

"Your babies are doing very well, and Dr. Shepherd will be back to check on you a little bit later."

"Actually, I'd prefer it if Dr. Shepherd were taken off the case." That made Meredith look up with raised eyebrows.

"Why?" Addison asked as she looked back at Meredith with the 'what did you do' look and Meredith just shrugged. "Is there a problem?"

"She just reminds me of someone I don't like very much, someone my husband likes a lot, particularly in lingerie. You understand."

"No, no, I don't understand," Addison looking really confused and now Meredith started remembering a previous interaction between her and Addison involving their running joke.

 _"Hey, sis, how are you doing?" Meredith looked up at Mark with raised eyebrows as he slung his arm over her shoulder. Being a med student, her family did not often stray onto campus. They wanted to talk to their baby sister or their wife, not be hounded by med students who wanted to hear about their latest medical procedures. This ment that Mark Sloan wanted something really, really bad._

 _"What do you want, Mark? I have a class in an hour," Meredith said taking a sip of her coffee._

 _"Well, I was wondering if you'd like to be my wife for the night?" Meredith watched coffee come out her nose in surprise, startling a few of her fellow students who stepped around her in shock._

 _Mark was trying to not laugh his ass off as Meredith leaned up with her hand over her face and nose._

 _"What did you just ask me?" Meredith asked staring at her brother. "You do realize that not only am I married, but that you are married too?"_

 _"I know, I know, but it's just for one night. The most touching there will be is maybe a hand hold, and that's nothing we've never done before."_

 _"Mark, why do you want me to pretend to be your wife when you already have one?"_

 _"My parents are coming into town, and my life would not be a good one if they found out I had married Addison. So, I decided that what they don't know doesn't hurt them and I thought you could pretend to be my wife for the night and call it a day," Mark said like his plan was genius._

 _"Have you run this little plan by Addison?" Meredith asked, crossing her arms._

 _"Uh, not really, but I assumed that the less she knew the better."_

 _"Mark-"_

 _"Please, Mer?" Meredith found herself looking into Mark's doe eyes and sighing._

 _"Fine, but if this backfires I'm going to blame you," Meredith said._

 _"Thank you!" Mark said as he picked her up and twirled her around. "Be at the apartment at five thirty in the nicest clothes you have. See you tonight, Little Miss. Thank you so much." Meredith chuckled as Mark raced back towards the direction of the parking lot, but she had a sinking feeling in her gut that this was a very, very bad idea._

 _Meredith pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders as she walked into the apartment building. She had taken the bus to the apartment as it was cheaper than getting a cab to take her from one side of Manhatten to the other and immediately regretted it after the first stop. She was 5'2, 100 pounds and wearing her best skirt, blouse, heels, and had on some very expensive peices of jewelry that she had gotten over various birthdays and anneversaries, public transportation was not the way to go. So she got off and took a cab._

 _She arrived at Mark's house at five thirty on the dot and was welcomed into the house by Mark although she had a key and the apartment was basically a second home. He had informed her of everything she needed to know about Mark's parents, most of which she already knew, but let him talk anyway since he was so on edge._

 _The two of them spent the next twentyish minutes in the kitchen, Meredith drinking wine and Mark cooking and keeping Meredith far away from the food so she couldn't magically burn it, and Mark rushed to the door when the doorbell rang._

 _"Mom, dad, welcome. Come on in."_

 _Meredith walked into the living room to see Mark's parents coming in, more specifically, right towards her. Meredith gulped and then put on the nicest smile possible to greet them._

 _"Mr. and Mrs. Sloan, it's very nice to meet you," Meredith said and held her hand out shaking both of her pretend in-laws hands._

 _"Likewise, My dear. I do apologize, but I don't know your name, Mark never told us," Mrs. Sloan said giving a pointed look back at Mark who smiled sheepishly._

 _"It's fine, Mrs. Sloan, I'm Adelaid Meredith Grey She-Sloan, Grey-Sloan," Meredith cleared her throat and smiled again hoping they didn't notice her slip up._

 _"How about we move to dinner," Mark announced hoping to move through the night as quickly as possible._

 _Meredith was almost impressed with how easily her and Mark were able to make dinner go. They may not have been married, but they were practiacally siblings and always knew what the other would say or do before they did it. Meredith breezed through it and thought she was home free, until the questions started coming._

 _"How long have you two been married?" Mrs. Sloan asked._

 _"Uh, just about five years." Mark smiled at his mom._

 _"And what do you do for a living, Mrs. Grey-Sloan?" Mr. Sloan asked._

 _"Oh, I'm in medical school. I'm probably going to be a surgeon," Meredith said._

 _"Medical school? How old are you?" Mrs. Sloan asked looking incredulously at Meredith._

 _"Uh...twenty three." Meredith winced at the look on Mrs. Sloan's face._

 _"You married a nineteen year old girl?" Mr. Sloan asked, mostly his son._

 _"I'm sorry, but we fell in love. Age didn't really matter," Mark retorted._

 _Mrs. Sloan looked at Meredith differently for the rest of the interrogation. But, thankfully, she hadn't yet given her another reason to hate her, that was until the most question of the night._

 _"As Mark very well knows, I would like grandchildren, Mrs. Grey-Sloan. I'm concerned, I haven't even seen the two of you hold hands since we got here...Is your sex life okay?"_

 _Meredith almost died right then and there. Her face began to mirror a tomato and she genuinely wanted to dissapear right then and there. This was not the conversation that she wanted to have with anyone, especially Mrs. Sloan._

 _"We're fine mom," Mark ground out. "We are fine, and we have great sex all the time, great sex that you should keep your nose out of."_

 _"Yeah, we have an excellent sex life." Meredith got even redder if that was possible._

 _Mrs. Sloan looked suspicious, but Mark had managed to change the subject and about ten minutes later, after constant questioning of their relationship and sex life, they were able to get them out the door. Once Mark had got the door locked they both leaned against the door._

 _"Never again, Mark, never again," Meredith said as she sat on the ground._

 _"Agreed."_

 _"Okay, I'm going to go to the bathroom, I've gotta pee before I head towards my apartment." Meredith stood up and walked towards the stairs._

 _"TMI," Mark shouted._

 _"We just talked about the two of us having sex, I don't think TMI is ever something either of us will ever be able to say again." Meredith walked towards the double doors that opened to the stairs, but when she pulled the doors towards her, she saw the last two people she needed to see that night._

 _Meredith stood looking at Derek Shepherd, her husband, and Addison Sloan, Mark's wife and her best friend, who were slack jawed and almost blankly staring ahead. Sadly, it was Addison who snapped out of it first._

 _"What the hell you adulterous bitch?"_

 _Meredith blinked, never expecting words like that to come out of her sisters mouth when she was talking about or to Meredith. "Addie-"_

 _"No, screw you. What the hell!"_

 _Meredith flinched at Derek's words. Again, she had never expected words like that to ever be directed at her from her husband's mouth. Now, she knew that this was all the result of a Mark Sloan plan and a miscommunication, but for some reason Meredith couldn't speak. It's like her brain just...broke. All she could do was stare straight forward, and she was petrified. She knew she shouldn't be because the only thing wrong she had done that night was not tell Derek the truth, which was bad, but not so bad that she should be petrified standing in the face of her husband's accusing glare._

 _"So, that's it? Nothing? No, I'm sorry for sleeping with your husband, sis, I'll try harder next time?"_

 _All Meredith did was stand there and stared forward and stared._

 _"Well, gee thanks. Mark!" Addison shouted as she pushed past Meredith._

 _"What, nothing, are you just going to stand there and stare. If you can't recall, I just caught my wife cheating on me with my brother. What where you doing down there? Drinking wine and discussing your innapropriate retationship with God knows who seeing as both of you were supposedly in happy marriages?" Derek looked livid as he walked around her and to the door._

 _That broke Meredith out of her weird stupor and suddenly it was like she was shoved back in her body._

 _"Derek, stop." Meredith turned around to face Derek._

 _"No, Meredith, I don't want to look at you right now."_

 _"I don't see why not, Derek, because I never cheated on you," Meredith said._

 _"Oh, that's rich," He snarled turning around._

 _"No, Derek, it isn't rich. I just spent two hours with Mr. And Mrs. Sloan pretending to be Mark's wife because for some reason he was dead set on not introducing Addison to them, and Mrs. Sloan apparently wants grandkids and asked about our sex life. So whatever you heard about us sleeping with each other was Mark and I trying to cover our asses!"_

 _Suddenly, Derek's whole demeanor changed. "Meredith, you should have lead with that," Derek said and then dropped his head into his hands, and sighs in what Meredith probably mistaked as relief._

 _"Uh...what?" That was not at all what Meredith had expected. More screaming, yes, a sigh of relief, no._

 _Derek looked at her in confusion and then it looked like something dawned on him. "You had no idea."_

 _"Um, what?" At this point, Meredith was really confused as to why her husband's mood so drastically in about five seconds._

 _"Remember the attempted assassination of The Captain about seven years ago?" Derek asked._

 _"Derek, seven years ago I was sixteen. At sixteen I was focused on trying to get my fast ball perfect, not who got shot when, where, and how," Meredith deadpanned._

 _"Okay, well the summary is that Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Sloan are the leaders of two rival companies, Sloan tried to kill Montgomery, Montgomery then tried to kill Sloan in retaliation, and now they eternally hate each other," Derek explained._

 _"Oh," then it hit her. "Oh my god. Mark couldn't introduce Addison because they might actually try and kill her. Literally." that was when Meredith heard something akin to anguished screeching._

 _"Meredith, I am so sorry!" She heard shouted and followed a second later by Addison herself coming around the corner and she quickly pulled her into hug, trying to suffocate Meredith._

 _"Addison," Derek said chuckling. "I just got my wife back, please don't kill her."_

"Well, she's sleeping with your husband, right?"

"Ms. Philips, I lack Dr. Shepherd's class, grace, and elegance so, let me set the record straight. My husband didn't cheat on me, it's a long running joke in our family after a really awkward situation in which Dr. Shepherd, who is also my sister, was protecting me. I think you owe my sister an apology."

Jamie was in the CT while Derek, George, and her parents were outside where Derek was showing them the scans.

"It's called Rasmussen's encephalitis. What it amounts to is that this side of her brain..." he said pointing. "This part's all healthy, working perfectly. This black part of the brain, this...all of that is dead, or dying. The condition has gotten radically worse since her CT scans three months ago. Left untreated, the disease is gonna kill her."

"How soon?" The dad asked.

"Too soon," Derek said sighing.

"So is there a cure?"

"The treatment requires the diseased portion of her brain be removed and sealed off. See, eventually, the spinal fluid will fill the cavity."

"R-Remove?" The dad sputtered. "But, I mean, that's..."

"Half her brain, yes," Derek finished for him.

"Half her brain. That...seems impossible," The mom said staring at the scans in disbelief.

"Her age makes it possible," Derek said trying to reassure them on some level. "Her brain's not fully developed, so the remaining neurons will compensate for the loss."

"But will she be normal?" the four of them walked out into the hall where Jamie was sitting on gurney playing with something.

"There are risks to any surgery, and this is, as you know, a very major one. However, if we're successful, Jamie could walk out of this hospital in a couple weeks, and go on to live a relatively normal life. Look, I know this is a lot to digest, but the important thing to remember is that we can save her life."

"Thank you so much, Doctor," the mom said as she picked up her baby and they and her husband left.

"Dr. O'Malley?"

"Yes? What?" George asked, sounding more than a little irritated.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but if the parents consent I thought you'd like to scrub in on the hemispherectomy. Are you in, or not?"

"Uh, in."

"Good," Derek said as he walked off.

Meredith was happy to be back in her burkenstocks, her favorite black miniskirt skirt, her favorite t-shirt, and her warm, oversized grey sweater. She walked down a different hallway, just to shake up everything, and to try and avoid as many people as possible. She walked passed the on call room and heard sounds she was not used to hearing from the on call room. Instead of two people getting it on or obnoxious snores, she heard the sounds of someone...sobbing. Meredith knew she should keep walking, it was none of her business, but she couldn't stop thinking she should go in. So she did.

Meredith pushed open the door and saw Addison Sloan sobbing on the floor of the on call room. Meredith's expression immediately dropped as she stepped in, shutting and locking the door behind her. Meredith threw her bag on the bed and then sat down in front of her sister who was still crying but was determined to stare at the floor apparently.

"Addie, what's wrong?" Meredith always hated seeing Addison, strong, determined, bad ass Addison, in a state like this. She was always so strong that it almost wrong to see her so vulnerable.

Addison was able to compose herself enough to talk to her sister and Addison looked right into Meredith's blue-grey eyes that have always had a calming effect Addison. She needed an anchor to say this and right now, Meredith was her anchor.

"I think I tore apart my marriage," She sobbed out.

 **A/N To be continued. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was kinda fun to write, and this was a pretty big cliffhanger to leave it on. I estimate that part two will be coming in about three days so you have that to look forward to.**

 **Thank you for all your continued support and I am always open to hear your comments, concerns, and criticisms.**

 **Let me know what you think and until next time. Bye!**


	9. Author's Note

**Wow, it's been a hot second guys. But guess what...**

 **I've returned.**

 **Over that past year, I have been very sick. And when I say sick, I mean real sick. While I was sick, I didn't feel like writing, I just didn't have the energy, but recently I have completed my treatments and got the the very good news that I am no longer sick. So, with my newfound happiness and unsicklyness, I have decided to again start writing on this very neglected story. So here we are!**

 **I am very excited to be back and hope you are very excited to read the story!**


	10. In Which Meredith Nearly Loses Her Mind

_"I think I tore apart my marriage."_

Meredith didn't know how to react to that as she saw her sister break down in front of her. Okay, okay, maybe she's exaggerating.

"Addie, talk to me, please. I can't help you if I don't know what's happening," Meredith said almost desperately as she pulled Addison into her arms. Meredith was confused. She loved her sister, but she also loved her brother, and Addison's words did not bode well for either.

"Remember those two miscarriages I had?" Addison asked as she seemed to compose herself slightly.

"The ones that I strongly advised you to tell Mark about so you two would stop trying and so you wouldn't go through the pain of miscarrying again, yeah," Meredith said trying to understand.

"And remember went I went to my gynecologist and she said that I had a hostile uterus and that even if I got pregnant, I would just miscarry it."

"Uh, yeah..."

"Meredith, I'm pregnant." That threw Meredith for a loop. What was it with all these people getting pregnant. Next, the next thing she knew, Miranda Bailey was going to be pregnant. Okay, off topic.

"Oh god Addison...what do you want to do?"

"I don't know, but that's not what I'm concerned about now, Mer. I was pushing Mark away since the first miscarriage, now I've pushed him halfway out the door, and I think he's starting to think about stepping the rest of the way out by himself."

Meredith knew the question she should ask. Now that he didn't want her anymore, she wants him, but when he wanted her, she pushed him away, but they were never like that. For seven long years, they've loved each other and been happy together.

"Addison, why did you never tell him about the miscarriages?"

"Because I thought he would leave me because I couldn't give him kids." _Smack._

"What the hell, Addison!"

"So that was as bad as it was in my head," Addison said rubbing the back of her head. "Perfect."

"Addison, why the hell would you think that? I know Mark acts like a know-it-all, cocky, douche, but he is not actually a know-it-all, cocky, douche, and you know that better than anybody." Meredith stood up and ran her hands down her face, before running one up into her hair and putting one on her hip.

"I know, I know, but I was scared, and I didn't know what to do," Addison said moving to sit on the bed.

"I'll tell you what you should have done, talked to Mark," Meredith said sighing.

"I know, but I didn't, and now I'm in a bind because I'm pregnant with a kid I'm just going to miscarry, and I'm about to lose my husband." Meredith wanted to smack Addison again because she put herself in a terrible situation because she wouldn't just talk to her husband, but there was something in Meredith that knew that if that had been Meredith in that position, she would have been petrified to tell Derek and probably wouldn't have. God, they needed to work on their communication skills.

"Well, I'll tell you what you need to do now, you need to talk to him and explain to him what's going on and hope that there's something in him that wants to stay with you and work things out after whatever the hell you've put him through over the past year." Meredith sighed and plopped down next to Addison who had her head in her hands and started rubbing her back.

"God, Mer, what have I done?"

"I don't know, but you two are strong. If anyone can fix this, it's you two," Meredith sighed. "Addie, I'm going to help you, I'm going to go talk to Mark, not on your behalf, but to gauge how pissed at you he's going to be when you talk to him."

Meredith pushed herself off the ground and helped Addison into a chair before leaving the room with a sigh. How did she always end up as the mediator?

"How does an intern get married to an attending and no one notices?"

Izzie, George, Alex, and Christina were all sitting in the tunnel snacking and eating before the next half of their 48-hour shift.

"I don't see why it bothers you so much," Christina said as she popped a potato chip in her mouth.

"You don't care that she's married? To her boss none the less?" Izzie asked in disbelief. "You do remember all those surgeries of his she was on?"

"She was in on those surgeries because she's a natural when it comes to neuro, not because she was married to him. They aren't those kinds of people," Alex said eating a bite of a chocolate bar.

"Do you think she was forced to marry him?" George asked idly. "I mean, she's only lived here for nine months, meaning they would have had to meet, date, and get married in nine months. That seems a little fast."

"And suspicious," Izzie added.

"They haven't been married for nine months, guys," Christina said.

"Again, they've only been here for nine months...wait, they've been married for less time?" George asked.

"They've been married for seven years," Christina said debating whether to roll her eyes or smack someone.

"What!" Izzie and George exclaimed.

"Yeah, why do you think Bailey hasn't jumped her ass yet? It's because not only did she know before Meredith became an intern, but she knows the full story," Alex said finishing his chocolate.

"They've been married for seven years?" Izzie asked distantly.

"Yep, happily," Alex said.

"...That was not what I was expecting..." George said.

"Yeah," Christina said standing up. "Also, I heard you spread the, at the time, rumor that Meredith and Derek were sleeping together, so on behalf of my person, fuck you."

Christina said and marched out, and Alex leaned up to look at Izzie.

"You did that to Meredith?" Alex asked, looking at Izzie incredulously.

"Well...I was kinda angry-"

"Thanks for nothing, Izzie. And here I thought you were the nice one," Alex said slightly disgusted and stood up to follow Christina out.

"George, I think we messed up..."

"You think?"

Meredith sighed as she walked down the hall in pursuit of her next target and wondered how she ended up living this life. She had been fantastic and happy in New York, why did she leave? Maybe this was universe's retaliation for fucking up the good stuff she had had, although life seemed to get a kick out of kicking her ass whether she provoked it or not.

She turned the corner and, thank God, found Mark Sloan walking out of a patients room with Alex following right behind. Bingo.

"Mark!" Meredith called as she sped up a bit to catch up with the two men.

"Hey, sis, I was just telling Alex-"

"I don't care," Meredith cut him off and turned to Alex. "Alex, go far, far away, and don't come back."

Alex saluted with a smirk on his face and Meredith turned back to face Mark, who looked slightly petrified.

"I swear, what ever happened, I didn't do it," Mark said throwing his hands up.

"For once in my life, I believe you," Meredith said and watch Mark visibly relax.

"Oh thank God," Mark said sighing. "Then what's up?"

Meredith looked around and once she was sure there was no one around she turned back to face him.

"How's your marriage, Mark?" Meredith asked and Mark gulped.

"Addie and I are just fine, Meredith-"

"Bullshit," Meredith said crossing her arms. "I can tell when you aren't happy from a mile away, Mark, you're too happy and flamboyant most of the time and now you hide behind fake smiles. I'm not stupid no matter how much you want me to be."

"Meredith, I know you think something is wrong, but there isn't," Mark said, clearly uncomfortable.

"Then why haven't I seen you once even though I was on her service all day? From Derek's stories, I have come to realize that back at Siani you two were never very far apart," Meredith said.

"Meredith, I just haven't had time," Mark said.

"Mark," Meredith said. "I'm not here to pry information out of you and then go tell Addison. She may be my sister, but you're my brother and I don't want to see you in pain. Whatever you tell me will stay between us."

"Meredith, I don't think Addison loves me anymore," Mark spilled out. That... was not as bad as she expected, but that wasn't good either. Meredith was halfway tempted to slam her head into a wall. God, did these people not know how to communicate.

"Mark," Meredith groaned and rubbed her hands down her face. "You need to go talk to Addison."

"Uh...what?"

"Go. Talk. To. Addie. There is a very dirt poor explanation for the hell you have probably been through for the last who knows how long. So, go talk to Addie about it and stop talking to me about it."

"You wanted to know," Mark said throwing his hands up.

"It was a test, Sloan. If you thought something was wrong with your relationship, you should have addressed it a long time ago. A lack of love is a very big something," Meredith called as she walked down the hallway.

"Thanks for nothing sis," Mark called back.

"Bitch, do I look like a therepist?" Meredith asked sticking her head around the corner.

"Uh, no."

"Then stop dumping your problems on me. Pass that on to Addie."

"Meredith!" Meredith groaned as she turned around. She had been wandering the halls of the hospital in search of her best friend, but was having zero luck.

She looked down the hallway to see Izzie Stevens running right for her, which was slightly surprising seeing as last time she checked, Izzie had still hated her.

"Uh, yes, Izzie?" Meredith asked as she looked at the blonde who had her head hung and was wringing her hands.

"I-I want to say I'm sorry," Izzie said quickly and Meredith furrowed her eyebrows.

"Izzie, for what?"

"I-I was the one that started the rumors about you." Meredith gapped at her like a fish.

What the hell was wrong with her? Does she just arbitrarily go around say her friends slept with their bosses?

"Izzie," Meredith said fuming. "I have no time for this. I need to find Christina, I'll deal with you later."

"Uh, Meredith, Christina passed out in surgery. Last I checked she was going into surgery."

"What!" Meredith exclaimed as she looked down to see that Addison had paged her for surgery seeing as Meredith was still on her service. She groaned as she ran down the hallways towards the ORs.

After her mad dash through the hospital, Meredith walked into the scrub room of the OR Addison had paged her to and looked out the windows to see the patient.

"What happened?" Meredith asked as she turned to face Addison who was washing her hands.

"Christina Yang had an ectopic pregnancy and passed out in surgery. I'm taking out a fallopian tube," Addison said as she scrubbed her hands and looked over at her sister who was staring at Christina through the glass.

"Do you need another set of hands?"

"Why do you think I paged you, dumbass, now scrub in," Addison said as she wiped her hands off and went into the room.

"Dammit Christina," Meredith said as she scrubbed her own hands.

Meredith walked down the hallway and walked into an on-call room to take a quick nap before doing post-op for Addison's patients, but was surprised to see Izzie sitting on the bottom bed staring at the wall.

Meredith sighed, she really had been harsh with her friend earlier. It is quite a shock to find out that your friend was married and how who she was married to was even more shocking. She can't blame Izzie for anything she did when she wasn't thinking straight. Was Meredith truly hurt by it? No, she couldn't care less what other people said about her. The people she cares about know the truth and that's all that truly matters in my book.

"You know," Meredith said out loud, shocking Izzie and causing her to whip around to look at Meredith. "If our roles were switched and I found out you were married to an attending, would have, without hesitation, beat the shit out of you."

"Are you implying that you want me to hit you Meredith?" Izzie asked with a raised eyebrow and Meredith just chuckled and sat on the bed next to her.

"I'm saying that I'm sorry. Not only for keeping my relations a lie but also for snapping at you earlier. You did something while you were in shock and had the balls to apologize. I shouldn't have snapped at you, and me being stressed was no excuse. In a world where attendings make or break your career, I understand being upset finding out that an intern is married to one," Meredith said and sighed.

"I am truly sorry for starting the rumors...well, I told everyone you were married, but I didn't mean to hurt you or have it escelate like it did. I just was hurt that you weren't open with your relationship, especially since it was with your boss, but that didn't give me the excuse to go and blab about it to everyone," Izzie said and Meredith nodded.

"I know, and at this point it's all water under the bridge. I honestly couldn't care less what people think about me. Also, did you and George both lose your appartments?"

"Uh, yeah. They're tearing down the building," Izzie said sighing. "We have nowhere to go for tonight so we were just going to crash here."

Meredith pulled out her spare house key and gave it to Izzie.

"My house has two extra bedrooms with actual beds. Just stay there for as long as you need, I don't mind," Meredith said standing up.

"Wait, Meredith, but I can't do that to you and Derek-"

"Izzie, you and George are my friends. Therefore, you aren't allowed to be homeless and living at the hospital. We really don't mind because no one is using either one right now. Now, I've got to do post op for Dr. Sloan, so I'll see you later.

"Mrs. Sloan," Mark said as he moved to sit beside Addison in the empty gallery of one of Bailey's surgeries. He had been trying to find a good time to talk to Addison, especially after whatever Meredith pulled today, and saw this as his opportunity.

"Mr. Sloan, I wasn't expecting you," Addison said leaning back and, for the first time in awhile, giving him a small smile.

"Well, I'm going to be frank, I've come because Meredith Shepherd has officially made herself involved, and I don't want to give her a reason to hit me with her tiny fists. So, I would like to talk," Mark said and Addison nodded.

"Is it coincidental that I was just about to come and find you?" Addison asked turning to face him better. "But I do agree, I think it's time to talk."

After a short pause and both parties sat akwardly staring at each other, Merk decided to get the ball rolling.

"Addie, dou you still love me?" Mark asked looking into Addison's eyes for any indication of an answer. In his ideal world, Addie would proceed to go on and on about how she still loved him and liked being with him and living together and being married and having date nights and being each other's best friend. But this was the real world, this was Mark's world, and he knew that someone as perfect as Addison wasn't destined to stay with him for too long.

That's when the unexpected happened. "Mark, I love you so much. I don't have words to describe how much I love you so much and I'm so sorry that I made you feel like I wasn't in love with you anymore. God, I screwed up, Mark. I am so sorry."

Mark almost cried at Addison's words as he pulled the near distraught woman into his embrace. Those are the words he had wanted to hear, but he thought he was never going to hear them, but here he was.

"It's okay, it's okay Addie," Mark said as he rubbed circles on her back.

"Mark," she said pulling away to look at him. "I've had two miscarriages, and I was afraid to tell you because I was afraid I couldn't have kids and that you would hate me because I know you really want kids. Oh God, I'm sorry."

"Hey, Addie, it's okay. One, I never would have been angry at you and I'm sorry you've had to carry that burden by yourself for so long. Two, I'm sorry I ever made you feel like you couldn't come to me...and that I yelled at you this morning."

"You shouldn't be sorry, Mark, this is all on me-"

"No, Addie, this is on just as much me as it is you. This is a marriage and I should have talked to you a long time ago," Mark said. Mark pulled Addison back into his embrace and they sat there for what feels like hours before anyone spoke again.

"Where do we go from here?" Marked asked looking down at his wife.

"How about we start by promising to communicate more and look into counseling. We should try and get back what we had," Addison offered looking up at Mark and smiled.

"You've got yourself a plan," Mark said before looking back down at the surgery that Dr. Bailey looked like she was finishing up.

"Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant."

 **A/N: Wow, this is a rollercoaster.**

 **Hey guys, because I explained my untimely absence, I'll just talk a bit about my plans for this story.**

 **One- I have no set time or day that I will be uploading but my goal for now as I'm just jumping back in is about a chapter a week, maybe one every two weeks. This is just until I get back into it and then I hope my updates will be more frequent.**

 **Two- I'm sorry this felt choppy, it has been periodically written on for over a year. Oops. It will probably be revised in a few weeks though.**

 **Three- If you felt like a lot of information was thrown at you, that is totally my bad, I'm just trying to set up major plot points that are going to be fleshed out over the next few chapters.**

 **Four- If you cannot tell by now, I am no longer going in order. Because of the events in the story, things are very different and I have to account for that, so if you see something that happened in season 12 and it's just chilling in the next few chapters which is a mesh of seasons 2 and 3 in canon, that's just me trying to make a coherent story line because the major plot of season two can't really happen.**

 **Four- As always, I would love to improve so any comments, concerns, or feedback are welcome. I'd love to see how you all felt about this chapter.**

 **Bye!**


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